Thomas Price Turner

Thomas Price Turner (c. 1790 – 1868) was a British musician, and was one of the artist J. M. W. Turner's first cousins.^[1] Following the artist's death in 1851, Thomas Price Turner was one of a group of interested parties who contested J. M. W. Turner's will. The first cousins were awarded part of J. M. W. Turner's legacy in 1856.

Turner was a professor of music in Exeter^[1][2] and was a secondary at Exeter Cathedral from 1820 until 1857.^[3][4] He had his own band. He sang in the 1834 Handel Commemoration in London, as J.M.W.Turner noted on looking at the programme. Two years later Turner's daughter Maria Harriet married a London builder and surveyor, whom she later deserted for another husband.

Turner married Maria Pridham in 1865,^[5] some time after retiring from the Cathedral and only a few years before his death in 1868.^[5] Maria had several children (Andrew, Charles, Maria) between 1847 and 1851 and is also recorded as being with Thomas in the UK Census Archives,^[6] though their exact relationship is unclear. Maria's children undoubtedly used the Turner name after the marriage between Thomas and Maria.^[7] It is unclear whether Turner was their natural father or their stepfather. Selby Whittingham (in "The Turners of Devon") has believed that he was the father.

References