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Sir Timothy Turner
SL
JP
(11 July 1585 ? January 1677) was an
English
judge.
Turner was the eldest son of the
Shropshire
barrister Thomas Turner. He was a member of
Staple Inn
and then joined
Gray's Inn
on 8 March 1607, being called to the bar on 30 October 1611. In the contemporary debates between
Sir Edward Coke
and
Lord Chancellor Ellesmere
, Turner's notebooks reveal him to have felt a strong reaction against Ellesmere's claims for the
royal prerogative
as "transcendent to the common law".
His initial practice was centered on
Ludlow
, the legal center of
Wales
and the
Marches
, but he was of little note officially until 1626, when he became a
justice of the peace
for
Shropshire
, through the influence either of
Sir Thomas Coventry
, or Ellesmere's son and heir the
Earl of Bridgewater
. (Turner's second wife was the widow of Bridgewater's late solicitor.)
A commissioner in Shropshire for the forced loan of 1626, Turner was subsequently king's solicitor before the
Council of the Marches
from 1627 to 1637, and a master in
chancery
extraordinary from 1630. He became a
bencher
of Gray's Inn in 1632. His first judicial appointment came in 1634, when he was made puisne judge for the North Wales circuit, and in 1637, became chief justice of South Wales. He became
recorder
of
Shrewsbury
in 1638.
In 1642, it was reported to the
House of Commons
that Turner and the mayor of Shrewsbury had placed a declaration before the grand jury which declared the
Commissions of Array
legitimate and included a promise to defend the
King
as well as the laws and privileges of Parliament. While Turner later claimed that he had been forced to take this position due to the strength of the
Royalist
party in Shropshire ? and several members of his household, including his son, joined the
Parliamentary
cause ? he was stripped of his offices by the end of 1645 and forced to compound with Parliament.
During the
Interregnum
, Turner reflected in 1658 that the conflict between Coke and Ellesmere "overthrew all at Last and brought the whole nation...into that slavery". However, upon the
Restoration
, Turner's passivity during the Interregnum was rewarded. He was made
Chief Justice of Chester
in 1660, restored to the recordership of Shrewsbury from 1660 until 1670, and a
serjeant-at-law
in 1669. He was knighted in 1670, and died in January 1677 aged 91.
References
[
edit
]
- Brooks, Christopher W (September 2004).
"Turner, Sir Timothy (1585?1677)"
.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
. Oxford University Press
. Retrieved
30 May
2007
.