TURNER, William (1776-1842), of Mill Hill, Blackburn, Lancs., Shrigley Hall, nr. Macclesfield, Ches. and 31 Parliament Street, London.

Having ‘made a large fortune in the calico trade’, Turner sat for almost a decade for his native borough, but made little impact at Westminster.1P. Burke, Celebrated trials connected with the upper classes of society, in the relations of private life (1851), 376. His former opponent at Blackburn, the Radical John Bowring, later described him as having ‘had absolutely no recommendation whatever, but that he had wealth, and was willing to spend it to obtain the honour of a position which he was about as fitted to fill as to quadrate the circle, to calculate an eclipse, or to give a lecture on Plato’.2Preston Guardian, 12 Aug. 1865. A press report in 1832 was equally derogatory, alleging him to be ‘a low illiterate man, without any pretensions to mental qualifications’.3The Examiner, 23 Dec. 1832.

Turner’s great-grandfather, a farmer from Martholme, near Blackburn, began business as a chapman, dealing in cloth woven on handlooms.4K.M. Atkinson, Abduction. The story of Ellen Turner (2002), 28. His father, Robert (1734-1811), traded in calico and, with his older brother William (who later became Turner’s father-in-law), in 1799 purchased the Mill Hill print works in Blackburn, operating in partnership with John Noble until 1803.5W.A. Abram, A history of Blackburn (1877), 228; www.cottontown.org: ‘Mill Hill Printworks (Livesey)’; London Gazette, 27 Oct. 1803. Thereafter, with another brother Thomas, they built up a large calico-printing business, which Turner and his older brothers continued after their father’s death. Two brothers died in 1825, leaving Turner and his surviving brother Robert in charge, although Robert was also concerned with his own business in Manchester.6Notes & Queries, 12th series (1922), x. 17; Abram, Blackburn, 228; Liverpool Mercury, 18 Mar. 1842. ‘Strict and circumspect in all his commercial relations’,7G.C. Miller, Blackburn: the evolution of a cotton town (1951), 413. Turner used his growing wealth to purchase a 1,700 acre estate at Shrigley, Cheshire in 1819, where he constructed a new mansion in 1825 and was patron of the living.8Gent. Mag. (1842), ii. 429; A. Ashby & A. Jones, The Shrigley abduction (2003), 114. He and Robert owned extensive racing studs – which they sold in 1837 – and Turner was a steward at Newton races, where he endowed the Shrigley cup.9New Sporting Magazine (1837), xii. 62-3; Atkinson, Abduction, 104; Sporting Review (1841), vi. 228. Among Turner’s stable was ‘that beautiful thorough-bred rich bay horse Shrigley’: Blackburn Standard, 28 Mar. 1838.

In 1826 Turner became Cheshire’s high sheriff, acquiring a new degree of social standing.10By Turner’s own admission, Cheshire’s squires did not call upon him at Shrigley until after his appointment as sheriff: Ashby & Jones, Shrigley abduction, 155. However, his shrieval year was marred by the abduction of his sole surviving daughter, Ellen, aged 15, who was lured away from her boarding school on the pretext that her mother was ill, and then persuaded to marry Edward Gibbon Wakefield at Gretna Green, in the belief that her father’s business had collapsed, and that this marriage might save him from ruin.11Burke, Celebrated trials, 380-3. As heiress to her father and uncle – and reputedly the wealthiest heiress in the country12Morning Post, 22 Mar. 1826. – Ellen was a tempting target for Wakefield, who in 1816 had perpetrated a similar scheme by eloping with Eliza Pattle, whose family settled £30,000 upon her. However, Eliza’s premature death meant that Wakefield did not receive her fortune.13D.J. Moss, ‘Wakefield, Edward Gibbon’, Oxf. DNB [www.oxforddnb.com]. Turner, praised by The Times for his ‘undaunted perseverance’, was made of sterner stuff, and rather than acquiescing in the marriage, sent his legal agent Thomas Grimsditch and Ellen’s uncles to pursue the newly-weds to France.14The Times, 19 May 1827; Burke, Celebrated trials, 385. Grimsditch was Conservative MP for Macclesfield, 1837-47. Great public interest was excited by the trial of Wakefield and his accomplices at Lancaster assizes in March 1827, when he was sentenced to three years in Newgate.15Burke, Celebrated trials, 376, 417. Wakefield’s brother William was also imprisoned, but although his stepmother Frances was found guilty, she was, at Turner’s request, not sentenced for her part in proceedings. Turner, whose wealth was rumoured at £1 million, expended at least £10,000 to annul the marriage by Act of Parliament, 14 June 1827.16Morning Post, 22 Mar. 1826; Atkinson, Abduction, 97-8. In 1828 Ellen married Thomas Legh, of Lyme Hall, Cheshire, but died three years later.17Morning Post, 17 Jan. 1828; Ashby & Jones, Shrigley abduction, 208. After his release from prison, Wakefield went on to be a prominent figure in the colonisation of Australia, New Zealand and Canada: Moss, ‘Wakefield, Edward Gibbon’. Thereafter Turner became involved with Legh’s estates, leasing mines and factories in partnership with Richard Evans.18Atkinson, Abduction, 107.

Offering at Blackburn in 1832, Turner advocated retrenchment, abolition of ‘all useless Offices’, pensions, sinecures, monopolies and restrictions on trade, revision of the corn laws, reductions in taxation, abolition of slavery and ‘the enactment of all measures that can be devised to give protection and support to the labour of the Artisan’.19Manchester Times and Gazette, 16 June 1832. He promised to retire at the end of the session if his constituents were dissatisfied with him.20Dod’s parliamentary companion (1833), 110. However, it was alleged that he relied ‘more on the strength of his ale and porter than on his arguments or principles’21Sheffield Independent, 28 July 1832.: his first speech in Blackburn – notable only for its brevity – was reportedly followed by the provision of 36 gallons of beer.22Preston Guardian, 29 Dec. 1877. Turner and his fellow Whig-leaning manufacturer, William Feilden, were elected ahead of the Radical Bowring after the Conservative, John Fowden Hindle, withdrew. At a subsequent dinner for Hindle, Turner promised to support the established constitution in church and state ‘to the utmost of my power’, although wishing to remedy abuses.23Lancaster Gazette, 26 Jan. 1833. Shortly after his return he donated £110 to local charities, including Sunday schools of all denominations, and in 1833 he and his wife endowed six almhouses at Bank Top.24Liverpool Mercury, 21 Dec. 1832; Abram, History of Blackburn, 351. He also gave land at Bollington near Macclesfield for the erection of a Catholic chapel, and in 1837 subscribed £5 towards Blackburn’s Primitive Methodist chapel.25British Magazine (1833), iii. 499; Blackburn Standard, 20 Dec. 1837.

Although said by later accounts to be ‘broadly Whiggish’ or ‘little more than a Liberal Conservative’ in 1832, Turner was classified by Dod the following year as a ‘Radical Reformer’, which was seemingly borne out by his votes.26B. Lewis, The middlemost and the milltowns: bourgeois culture and politics in early industrial England (2001), 385; Preston Guardian, 5 Aug. 1865; Dod’s parliamentary companion (1833), 110. He divided consistently for the ballot and shorter parliaments, supported Hume on the abolition of military sinecures, 14 Feb. 1833, and backed revision of the pension list, 18 Feb. 1834. He voted for reduction of the malt duty, 26 Apr. 1833, and was in minorities for a low fixed duty on corn and the abolition of flogging of slaves and soldiers. He supported the Irish church temporalities bill, 11 Mar. 1833, but opposed Althorp’s plans to replace church rates with funds from the land tax, 21 Apr. 1834. Turner served on the inquiries into the Hertford and Longford election petitions, and the committee on handloom weavers’ petitions.27CJ, lxxxviii. 173, 184; PP 1834 (556), x. 2. He was re-appointed to the last of these in 1835: PP 1835 (341), xiii. 2. His record was such that in December 1834 Bowring praised him as ‘an honest, straight-forward servant of the public cause’ and ‘a consistent Parliamentary reformer’, despite having received Tory support in 1832.28Preston Chronicle, 20 Dec. 1834. For a summary of Turner’s votes, see Parliamentary test book 1835 (1835), 160, although this states in error that he divided against shorter parliaments.

However, seeking re-election in 1835, together with Feilden, who had gone over to the Conservatives, Turner declined to ‘coalesce’ with Bowring, and declared himself ‘attached to no particular party’.29Blackburn Standard, 11 Feb. 1835; Parliamentary test book 1835, 160. Absent from the nomination – reports differed as to whether this was because of his own or his wife’s ill-health30Morning Post, 10 Jan. 1835; The Times, 10 Jan. 1835. – Turner topped the poll, and lent his support to ensure Feilden’s return ahead of Bowring, thereby incurring Bowring’s wrath for his ‘base’ conduct.31Preston Guardian, 12 Aug. 1865; Blackburn Standard, 28 Jan. 1835. He and Feilden shared a celebratory dinner, at which Turner emphasised that ‘it is to measures and not to men that I look’, and declared that he would not offer ‘factious opposition’ to Peel.32Blackburn Standard, 11 Feb. 1835. The Examiner included him among the ‘doubtful’ men whose allegiance was uncertain, and he was listed by Stanley as a member of the Derby dilly, 23 Feb. 1835.33The Examiner, 8 Feb. 1835; R. Stewart, The foundation of the Conservative party 1830-1867 (1978), 376. He divided with Peel on the speakership, 19 Feb., and the address, 26 Feb. 1835. Turner made his only known contribution to debate to deny allegations by Bowring (returned at Kilmarnock) that Turner’s victory owed much to the beer-barrel and that he had intimidated tenants, 27 Mar. 1835. Bowring protested that while Turner ‘had stood on the extreme of Radicalism – had pledged himself deeply to out-and-out Reformers – had swallowed Mr. Cobbett’s propositions, and gone to the length of declaring, that he would vote for the adjustment of the National Debt’, he had now ‘changed places and principles’.

Turner’s ‘coquetting with the Conservatives’ did not, however, last long, as he was among those members of the Derby dilly who divided with Russell on the Irish church, 2 Apr. 1835 and 23 July 183534Preston Guardian, 12 Aug. 1865. Stewart lists him as absent from the vote on the Irish church on 3 Apr. 1835: Stewart, Foundation of the Conservative party, 376: the latter vote ‘roused the ire of his Tory supporters’.35Blackburn Standard, 5 Aug. 1835. He refused to pay church rates at Prestbury, Cheshire in July 1835, ‘the misapplication of the Funds in feastings and other extravagancies’ being one reason for this, although he offered a voluntary contribution instead.36Blackburn Standard, 8 July 1835. In 1836 he corrected Dod’s description of him as a Radical, but declared himself ‘always a Liberal’, and his votes for the remainder of this parliament reflected this, backing ministers on the Irish church, 3 June 1836, and the abolition of church rates, 23 May 1837.37Dod MSS, iii. 1085. He divided consistently for the ballot and supported a fixed duty on corn, 16 Mar. 1837. His interests as a manufacturer set him at odds with Blackburn’s operatives in 1836, when he declined to present their petition for a 10 hour factory day, although he would support 11 hours.38Blackburn Standard, 21 Sept. 1836.

Offering again in 1837, Turner described himself as an enemy to the new poor law and its centralising aspects.39Preston Chronicle, 29 July 1837. Although the Conservative Blackburn Standard attacked him as a ‘Whig-Radical supporter of the O’Connell Cabinet’,40Blackburn Standard, 2 Aug. 1837. ‘his firm commitment as a Churchman to church and state and his pattern of independent voting’ meant that he did not have the confidence of Blackburn’s radicals, who rallied behind John Benjamin Smith.41Lewis, The middlemost and the milltowns, 424. Smith, however, withdrew, leaving Feilden and Turner to be re-elected. Turner served on the committees on the Youghal and Petersfield election petitions42J.W. Knapp & E. Ombler, Cases of controverted elections in the twelfth Parliament of the United Kingdom (1837), 444; T. Falconer & W.H. Fitzherbert, Cases of controverted elections determined in committees of the House of Commons in the second Parliament of the reign of Queen Victoria (1839), 261., and in 1838 presented a petition for corn law repeal from nearly 4,000 Blackburn inhabitants.43Manchester Times and Gazette, 17 Mar. 1838. He divided for going into committee to consider the corn laws, 26 Mar. 1840. Rather more assiduous than Feilden, he voted in 95 out of 293 divisions in the 1838 session, ranking eighth among Lancashire’s MPs in this respect.44Liverpool Mercury, 21 Sept. 1838. Turner voted in 92 out of 250 divisions in 1839, 88 out of 256 in 1840 and 41 out of 109 in 1841: Preston Chronicle, 7 Sept. 1839, 22 Aug. 1840, 26 June 1841. A later account recalled that ‘Turner at this time was often seen in what was considered strange political company, such as Grote, the historian, Wallace, M.P for Greenock, Tom Duncombe… John Fielden and General Johnson’, and the Radicals regarded him ‘as an accession to their side’.45Preston Guardian, 5 Jan. 1878. This flirtation with the radicals saw him in minorities for considering the Chartist petition, 12 July 1839, and against the poor law, 15 July 1839. However, he supported ministers on Canada, 7 Mar. 1838, Irish church appropriation, 15 May 1838, and education, 20 June 1839, but opposed them on Yarde Buller’s confidence motion, 31 Jan. 1840. His political position was far from clear-cut: a correspondent to the Morning Post in March 1841 considered him ‘perhaps’ not a Whig and possibly among the ‘very liberal Tories’.46Morning Post, 5 Mar. 1841. However, he rallied to ministers on reduction of the sugar duties, 18 May 1841, and opposed Peel’s no confidence motion, 4 June 1841. Turner’s residence at Shrigley meant that he was less involved in local affairs than many Blackburn MPs, but he joined Feilden as patron of the Blackburn Agricultural Society’s first annual show in 1840, when he described himself as ‘to some extent a practical farmer’, recommending the use of bone dust on fields.47Blackburn Standard, 9 Sept. 1840, 30 Sept. 1840. He chaired a local meeting which discussed extension of the railway to Blackburn with George Stephenson.48The civil engineer and architect’s journal (1841), iv. 31.

Turner initially decided against seeking re-election in 1841 on grounds of ‘age, increasing infirmities, and recent domestic affliction’ – his wife had died that April49Preston Chronicle, 24 Apr. 1841.– but was persuaded to offer again.50The Standard, 28 May 1841; Morning Post, 21 June 1841. He addressed voters in support of free trade, but declined to canvass.51Morning Post, 18 June 1841. The Conservatives brought out a second candidate, to whom Turner lost by a single vote. His petition for a scrutiny was unsuccessful, 27 Apr. 1842. This failed attempt to regain his seat was said to have resulted in ‘a broken and wounded spirit [and]… a broken heart, for which medicine was no avail’.52Preston Guardian, 12 Jan. 1878. Turner died less than three months later at Mill Hill.53Manchester Times, 30 July 1842. He was buried in the family vault at St. John’s, Blackburn.54Ashby & Jones, Shrigley abduction, 211. He left the Shrigley estate to his granddaughter, Ellen Jane Legh.55J.B. Burke, A visitation of the seats and arms of the noblemen and gentlemen of Great Britain (1852), i. 214. Shrigley Hall passed out of family hands in 1929 and is now a hotel: Atkinson, Abduction, 108. His brother Robert had predeceased him that March, and their Mill Hill business and estate was sold in 1843 to Joseph Eccles, who demolished the print works and erected new mills on the site.56Liverpool Mercury, 18 Mar. 1842; Abram, Blackburn, 229. Turner’s correspondence with George Crompton, his manager at Ewood mill, forms part of the Crompton papers, Bolton Archive and Local Studies Service.57G. Timmins, A guide to the Crompton Archive (n.d.), 6 [http://www.microform.co.uk/guides/R50032.pdf]. George Crompton was the son of Samuel Crompton, inventor of the spinning mule.