Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Turner, Peter (1542-1614)
TURNER, PETER, M.D. (1542–1614), physician, son of William Turner (d. 1568) [q. v.], the botanist, was born in 1542. He graduated M.A. at Cambridge, then proceeded M.D. at Heidelberg in 1571, and was incorporated M.D. in his own university in 1575 and 10 July 1599 at Oxford. He practised his profession in London, where, on 4 Dec. 1582, he was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians. He was promised on 4 May 1580 the reversion to the office of physician to St. Bartholomew's Hospital. He succeeded Dr. Roderigo Lopez [q. v.], and was in 1584 succeeded by Dr. Timothy Bright [q. v.] He represented Bridport in several of Elizabeth's parliaments (Off. Return), and is said to have zealously advocated the cause of the puritans in the House of Commons (Strype, Whitgift, i. 347). In 1606 he attended Sir Walter Ralegh in the Tower (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1603–1610, p. 307). He married Pascha, daughter of Henry Parry, chancellor of Salisbury Cathedral, and sister of Henry Parry [q. v.], bishop of Worcester, and died in London on 27 May 1614. He is buried near his father in the church of St. Olave's, Hart Street, London, in a coloured tomb of the Jacobean style, on which his effigy kneels in a scarlet gown. Peter Turner (1586–1652) [q. v.] and Samuel Turner (d. 1647) [q. v.] were his sons. He was the author of a pamphlet, ‘The Opinion of Peter Turner, Doct. in Physicke, concerning Amulets, or Plague Cakes,’ London, E. Blount, 1603, 4to (Brit. Mus.), and probably of ‘A Spirituall Song of Praise’ appended to Oliver Pygge's ‘Meditations,’ 1589, 4to.
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. i. 84; manuscript Journal of St. Bartholomew's Hospital; Stow's Survey of London, 1633.]