TURLE, JAMES (1802-1882), English organist and composer, was born at Taunton, Somerset, and started as a choir boy at Wells Cathedral. In 1817 he became a pupil in London of the organist at Westminster Abbey, and after acting as deputy for some years he succeeded to this post himself in 1831 and held it till his death. He and Sir John Goss, the organist at St Paul's, had been fellow-pupils in London as boys. Turle was a great organist in his day, and composed a good deal of church music which is still well known. His son Henry Frederic Turle (1835-1883) was editor of Notes and Queries.
TURMERIC (from Fr. terre mèrite, turmeric, Lat. terra merita, deserved, i.e. excellent earth; Skeat suggests that it is a barbarous corruption, perhaps of Arabic karkam, kurkum, saffron or curcuma), the tuberous root of Curcuma longa, L., an herbaceous perennial plant belonging to the natural order Zingiberaceae. It is a native of southern Asia, being cultivated on a large scale both on the mainland and in the islands of the Indian Ocean. Turmeric has been used from a remote period both as a condiment
and as a dyestuff, and to a more limited extent as a medicine
(now obsolete). In Europe it is employed chiefly as a dye, also
as an ingredient in curry powder and as a chemical test for
alkalies. The root is prepared by cleaning it and drying it in an
oven. There are several varieties (Madras, Bengal, Gopalpur,
Java, China and Cochin turmeric), differing chiefly in size and
colour and to a slight degree in flavour. Some of these consist
exclusively of the ovate central tubers, known as “bulbs,” or
”round turmeric,” and others of the more cylindrical lateral
tubers, which are distinguished in trade as “fingers,” or “long
turmeric.” Both are hard and tough, but break with a short
resinous or waxy fracture, which varies in tint from an orange
brown to a deep reddish brown. The colour is due to curcumin,
C14H16O7, of which the drug contains about 0.3%. When pure it forms yellow crystals having a vanilla odour and exhibiting a fine blue colour in reflected light. It is soluble in alcohol, in chloroform and in alkaline solutions, but only sparingly in water. Paper tinged with a tincture of turmeric exhibits on the addition of an alkali a reddish brown tint, which becomes violet on drying. This peculiarity was pointed out by H. A. Vogel in 1815, and
since that date turmeric has been utilized as a chemical test for detecting alkalinity. It is of no therapeutic value. In Sierra Leone a kind of turmeric is obtained from a species of Canna.
TURNEBUS, ADRIANUS [Adrien Turnèbe] (1512-1565), French classical scholar, was born at Les Andelys in Normandy. At the age of twelve he was sent to Paris to study, and attracted great notice by his remarkable abilities. After having held the post of professor of belles-lettres in the university of Toulouse, in 1547 he returned to Paris as professor (or royal reader) of Greek at the Collège Royal. In 1552 he was entrusted with the printing of the Greek books at the royal press, in which he was assisted by his friend, Guillaume Morel (q.v.). He died of consumption on the 12th of June 1565. His works chiefly consist of philological dissertations, commentaries (on Aeschylus, Sophocles, Theophrastus, Philo and portions of Cicero), and translations of Greek authors into Latin and French. His son, Étienne, published his complete works, in three volumes (Strassburg, 1600), and his son Adrien his Adversaria, containing explanations and emendations of numerous passages in classical authors.
See Oratio funebris by Léger du Chesne (Leodegarius a Quercu) prefixed to the Strassburg edition; L. Clément, De Adriani Turnebi praefationibus et poematis (1899); J. E. Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship (1908) iii.
TURNER, CHARLES (1773–1857), English engraver, was born
at Woodstock in 1773. He entered the schools of the Royal
Academy in 1795; and, engraving in stipple in the manner of
Bartolozzi, he was employed by Alderman Boydell. His finest
plates, however, are in mezzotint, a method in which he engraved
J. M. W. Turner’s “Wreck” and twenty-four subjects of his Liber
studiorum, Reynold’s “Marlborough Family,” and many of
Raeburn’s best portraits, including those of Sir Walter Scott,
Lord Newton, Dr Hamilton, Professors Dugald Stewart and
John Robison, and Dr Adam. He also worked after Lawrence,
Shee and Owen. He was an admirable engraver, large, broad
and masterly in touch; and he reproduced with great fidelity the
characteristics of the various painters whose works he translated
into black and white. In 1828 he was elected an associate
of the Royal Academy. He died on the 1st of August 1857.
TURNER, SIR JAMES (1615–1686), Scottish soldier and
military writer, was educated with a view to his entering the
Church, but early showed his preference for the profession of arms
by enlisting in the Swedish army, then the most famous training-school
in Europe. He saw considerable service in the Thirty
Years’ War, and in 1640 returned to Scotland as a captain. It
was not long before he secured employment, and as a major he
accompanied the Scottish army in its invasion of England in
the same year, successfully avoiding the imposition of the
“Covenant” as a test. With Lord Sinclair’s regiment Major
Turner served in Ulster, and subsequently, after failing to join
Montrose’s army, accompanied the Scottish army until Naseby
practically ended the Civil War. Turner was often with Charles I.
during his detention at Leslie’s headquarters, and continually
urged him to escape. Up to this time he had served against
the king, but always with some repugnance, and he had welcomed
the opportunity when in 1648 the cause of the king and the interests
of the Scottish nation for the moment coincided. In the
disastrous campaign which followed Turner was at Hamilton’s
headquarters, and it was owing to the neglect of his advice that
the rout of Preston took place. Taken in the final surrender at
Uttoxeter, he spent some time in captivity, but in 1649 was released
and sent abroad. He was unable for want of means to
reach Montrose in time to join in the final venture of the noblest
of the Royalist commanders, but he landed in Scotland on the
day before Dunbar, and in the grave crisis that followed was a
welcome ally. As a colonel and adjutant-general of foot he was
with Charles II. at Worcester. In that battle he was captured,
but regained his liberty, and after many adventures escaped to
the Continent, where he was for some years he was engaged in various
Royalist intrigues, conspiracies and attempted insurrections. At
the Restoration he was knighted, and in 1662 he became a
major in the Royal Guards. Four years later, as a district commander
in Scotland, he was called upon to deal severely with
Covenanter disturbances. Though not, it appears, unjust, his
dragooning methods eventually led to his being deprived of his
command. The rest of his life was spent in retirement. A
pension was granted to him by James II. in 1685. In 1683
he had published his Pallas armata, Military Essayes of the
Ancient Grecian, Roman and Modern Art of War, one of the
most valuable authorities for the history of military sciences.
TURNER, JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM (1775-1851),
English painter, was born in London on the 23rd of April 1775.
His father, William Turner, a native of Devonshire, kept a barber's
shop at 26 Maiden Lane, in the parish of St Paul's, Covent
Garden. Of the painter's mother, Mary Marshall or Turner,
little is known; she is said to have been a person of
ungovernable temper and towards the end of her life became
insane. Apparently the home in which Turner spent his childhood
was not a happy one, and this may account for much that
was unsociable and eccentric in his character. The earliest
known drawing by Turner, a view of Margate Church, dates from
his ninth year. It was also about this time that he was sent to
his first school at New Brentford. Of education, as the term is
generally understood, he received but little. His father taught
him to read, and this and a few months at New Brentford and
afterwards at Margate were all the schooling he ever had; he
never mastered his native tongue, nor was he able in after life
to learn any foreign language. Notwithstanding this lack of
scholarship, one of his strongest characteristics was a taste for
associating his works with personages and places of legendary
and historical interest, and certain stories of antiquity seem to
have taken root in his mind very strongly.
By the time Turner had completed his thirteenth year his schooldays were over and his choice of an artist's career settled. In 1788-1789 he was receiving lessons from Palice, “a floral drawing master;” from T. Malton, a perspective draughtsman;
