Sharon Turner
| Sharon Turner | |
|---|---|
 Sharon Turner by Sir Martin Archer Shee. |
|
| Born | 24 September 1768 Pentonville |
| Died | 13 February 1847 (aged 78) Red Lion Square |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Historian |
| Known for | Anglo-Saxon history |
Sharon Turner (24 September 1768 – 13 February 1847) was an English historian.[1]
Contents |
[edit] Life
Born in Pentonville, Turner was the eldest son of William and Ann Turner, Yorkshire natives who had settled in London upon marrying.[2] He left school at fifteen to be articled to an attorney in the Temple. On 18 January 1795 he married Mary Watts (bap. 1768, died 1843), with whom he had at least six children. Among these were Sydney, inspector of reformatory schools, and Mary, married to the economist William Ellis.[1]
Turner became a solicitor but left the profession after he became interested in the study of Icelandic and Anglo-Saxon literature. He settled himself in Red Lion Square near the British Museum, staying there for sixteen years. He advised his friend Isaac D'Israeli to baptize his children (Benjamin included) in order to give them a better chance in life.[2]
[edit] History of the Anglo-Saxons
Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons appeared in four volumes between 1799 and 1805.
Britain at the time of original publication was involved in wars against France and the idea of the Norman yoke (Anglo-Saxon liberty versus Norman despotism) had been around since the seventeenth century. Turner demonstrated Anglo-Saxon liberty "in the shape of a good constitution, temperate kingship, the witenagemot, and general principles of freedom".[2] Turner researched extensively the collections in the British Museum and the manuscripts of Sir Robert Cotton. In doing so he obtained a working knowledge of Anglo-Saxon.
The History had a profound impact on historiography for the succeeding fifty years.[2] Robert Southey said that "so much new information was probably never laid before the public in any one historical publication".[3] However the Edinburgh Review in 1804 criticised Turner for a lack of discrimination and for the romantic parts of the work.[2]
Sir Walter Scott acknowledged his debt to Turner for his historical work in his Dedicatory Epistle to his novel Ivanhoe.[4] In 1981 J. W. Burrow said Turner produced "the first modern full-length history of Saxon England...It was a genuinely pioneering work, and was much admired, and not without reason".[5]
[edit] Historical work
Thereafter he continued the narrative in History of England (1814-29), concluding with the end of the reign of Elizabeth I. Against the emergence of the French Consulate, he promoted the notion of Anglo-Saxon liberty as opposed to Norman tyranny (strong since the 17th century).
These histories, especially the former, though somewhat marred by an attempt to emulate the grandiose style of Gibbon, were works of real research, opening up and to a considerable extent developing a new field of inquiry in the area of Anglo-Saxon history. For example, Herodotus reported the Persians called the Scythians “Sakai”, and Sharon Turner identified these very people as the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons. In carefully determining their origins in the Caucasus, Turner wrote: “The migrating Scythians crossed the Araxes, passed out of Asia, and suddenly appeared in Europe in the sixth century B.C… The names Saxon, Scythian and Goth are used interchangeably.”
Turner also authored a Sacred History of the World, a translation of Beowulf and a poem on Richard III. Turner's place as a historian has been debated by later generations of academics.
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b Cousin, John William (1910). "
Sharon Turner". A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons. Wikisource - ^ a b c d e H. R. Loyn, ‘Turner, Sharon (1768–1847)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, May 2009, accessed 14 Aug 2010.
- ^ Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey. Volume II (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1850), p. 342.
- ^ Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe (Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 16.
- ^ J. W. Burrow, A Liberal Descent. Victorian Historians and the English Past (Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 116-117.
[edit] References
- H. R. Loyn, ‘Turner, Sharon (1768–1847)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, May 2009, accessed 14 Aug 2010.
[edit] Further reading
- C. T. Berkhout and M. McC. Gatch, Anglo-Saxon Scholarship. The First Three Centuries (Boston, 1992).
- D. G. Calder, ‘Histories and Surveys of Old English Literature; a Chronological Review’, Anglo-Saxon England 10 (1982), pp. 201-244.
- "Turner, Sharon". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
