| Administrative history | John Turton (1735-1806), physician, born in Staffordshire on 15 November 1735, was son of John Turton (1700-1754), physician, of Wolverhampton and of Adelphi Street, London, by his wife Dorothy, only surviving child of Gregory Hickman. Dr Johnson wrote some verses to this lady, "To Miss Hickman playing upon the Spinet" (Boswell, Lfe of Johnson, ed Croker, 1791, p. 23). John entered Queen's College, Oxford, on 23 October 1752, graduating thence B.A. 16 June 1756, and M.A. on 31 May 1759. In May 1761 he obtained a Radcliffe travelling fellowship at University College, Oxford, and on 28 Sept. 1761 began to study medicine at Leyden (Peacock, Index of Leyden Students, 1883). He graduated M.B. from University College 11 December 1762, and M.D. 27 February 1767. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on 17 November 1763, and admitted on 5 March 1767. He settled in London, was admitted a candidate at the College of Physicians 24 Sept. 1767, and elected a fellow 30 Sept. 1768. He was a censor in 1769, 1775, 1782 and 1788, and became an elect 25 June 1788. He soon attained a large practice, was physician to the queen's household in 1771, physician in ordinary to the queen in 1782, and in 1797 physician in ordinary to the king and to the Prince of Wales. Having grown rich by his practice, he resigned his post of elect in the College of Physicians and retired to Brasted Place in Kent, which he had purchased from Lord Frederick Campbell and rebuilt. George III gave him a striking clock to put on his house, which was once in the turret of the Horse Guards. He died without issue at Brasted on 14 April 1806, and is buried in the parish church, where he has a white marble sarcophagus. His wife Mary was the daughter and coheiress of Joseph Kitchingman of Balk Hall, near Thirsk. On her death on 28 January 1810 Turton's real property, amounting to 9,000l. a year, besides 60,000l. in the funds descended by will to his relative, Edmund Peters, who assumed the name of Turton.
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. ii. 284; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715-1886; Gent. Mag. 1806, i. 391, 475, 1810 i. 288; Burke's Landed Gentry, 1894; Thomson's History of the Royal Society, 1812].
Information taken from the Dictionary of National Biography, by Norman Moore MD. |