Timothy Turner

Last updated

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.

Related Research Articles

There has been a Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire almost continuously since the position was created by King Henry VIII in 1535. The only exception to this was the English Civil War and English Interregnum between 1643 and 1660 when there was no king to support the Lieutenancy. The following list consists of all known holders of the position: earlier records have been lost and so a complete list is not possible. Since 1702, all Lord Lieutenants have also been Custos Rotulorum of Buckinghamshire.

Lord Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire

This is a list of people who have served as Lord Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire. Since 1694, all Lords Lieutenant have also been Custos Rotulorum of Nottinghamshire.

The Office of the Lord Lieutenant was created during the reign of Henry VIII (1509–1547), taking over the military duties of the Sheriffs and control of the military forces of the Crown. From 1569 there was provision for the appointment of Deputy Lieutenants, and in 1662 the Lord-Lieutenant was given entire control of the militia. The Forces Act of 1871 transferred this function back to the Crown, and in 1921, the office lost its power to call upon men of the County to fight in case of need. Since 1711 all the Lord Lieutenants have also been Custos Rotulorum of Devon.

Thomas Egerton, 1st Viscount Brackley

Thomas Egerton, 1st Viscount Brackley,, known as 1st Baron Ellesmere from 1603 to 1616, was an English nobleman, judge and statesman from the Egerton family who served as Lord Keeper and Lord Chancellor for twenty-one years.

Sir John Bridgeman, SL was a barrister of the Inner Temple, serjeant-at-law and local magnate in the West of England during the early 17th century.

Richard Vaughan, 2nd Earl of Carbery

Richard Vaughan, 2nd Earl of Carbery KB, PC, styled The Honourable from 1621 until 1628 and then Lord Vaughan until 1634, was a Welsh soldier, peer and politician.

Thomas Chamberlayne (judge)

Sir Thomas Chamberlayne, SL was an English judge who served as Chief Justice of Chester during the reign of James I of England.

Roger Whitley was a royalist officer in the English Civil War, attaining the rank of Major General and was closely involved throughout the 1650s in plans for a royalist uprising against the Interregnum and Protectorate regimes. He had accompanied the young King Charles II into exile and carried the kings orders into Cheshire on the rising of forces, under Lord Delamere, at the eve of the Restoration.

Thomas Jones (justice)

Sir Thomas Jones KS was an English judge and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1660 to 1676.

John Doddridge

Sir John Doddridge (1555–1628) was an English lawyer, appointed Justice of the King's Bench in 1612 and served as Member of Parliament for Barnstaple in 1589 and for Horsham in 1604. He was also an antiquarian and writer. He acquired the nickname "the sleeping judge" from his habit of shutting his eyes while listening intently to a case. As a lawyer he was influenced by humanist ideas, and was familiar with the ideas of Aristotle, and the debates of the period between his followers and the Ramists. He was a believer in both the rationality of the English common law and in its connection with custom. He was one of the Worthies of Devon of the biographer John Prince (d.1723).

Thomas Mytton

General Thomas Mytton was an English officer in the Parliamentary army during the English Civil War.

Sir Hugh Owen, 1st Baronet was a Welsh politician who sat in the House of Commons variously between 1626 and 1660. He sided originally with the Parliamentarian side in the English Civil War, but the strength of his allegiance was in doubt.

Sir Timothy Littleton was an English judge and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1660 and 1670.

Sir John Corbet, 1st Baronet of Stoke upon Tern was an English politician who represented Shropshire in the House of Commons of the long Parliament. A moderate Puritan, he was noted before the English Civil War for his campaigns against extra-parliamentary taxation, which led to his imprisonment, and for waging a long running dispute over control of his parish church at Adderley. He was a notable member of the Shropshire county committee, responsible for pursuing the war against the royalists. Part of a Presbyterian middle group in Parliament, he was one of those secluded from parliament by Pride's Purge, and was stripped of his remaining public offices after the Restoration.

Humphrey Mackworth was an English lawyer, judge, and politician of Shropshire landed gentry origins who rose to prominence in the Midlands, the Welsh Marches and Wales during the English Civil War. He was the Parliamentarian military governor of Shrewsbury in the later phases of the war and under The Protectorate. He occupied several important legal and judicial posts in Chester and North Wales, presiding over the major trials that followed the Charles Stuart's invasion in 1651. In the last year of his life, he attained national prominence as a member of Oliver Cromwell's Council and as a Member of the House of Commons for Shropshire in the First Protectorate Parliament.

Robert Corbet (died 1676)

Robert Corbet was an English politician who supported Parliament in the English Civil War. He was a member of the Shropshire county committee, responsible for pursuing the war against the royalists and represented Shropshire in the First Protectorate Parliament. He is particularly known as the employer and mentor of Richard Gough, author of the Antiquities and Memoirs of the Parish of Myddle, a pioneering work of ethnographic literature, in which he is mentioned repeatedly.

Richard Ottley

Sir Richard Ottley was an English Royalist politician and soldier who served as a youth in the English Civil War in Shropshire. After the Restoration he played a prominent part in the repression of Parliamentarians and Nonconformists and was MP for Shropshire in the Cavalier Parliament.

Edward Bromley

Sir Edward Bromley (1563–1626) was an English lawyer, judge, landowner and politician of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. A member of a Shropshire legal and landed gentry dynasty, he was prominent at the Inner Temple and became a Baron of the Exchequer. He was elected MP for Bridgnorth on six consecutive occasions.

John Wolryche

John Wolryche (c.1637–1685) was a lawyer and politician of landed gentry background who represented Much Wenlock in the House of Commons of England in two parliaments of Charles II. He was a moderate Whig, opposing the succession of James II but avoiding involvement in conspiracies.

References

Legal offices
Preceded by
John Bradshaw
Chief Justice of Chester
1660–1661
Succeeded by
Sir Geoffrey Palmer, Bt