Frederick Blair Turner, (1898-1980), soldier and physician, was born at Raipur in the Central Province, India, on 14 December 1898, the only son of Frederick Charles Turner (1872-1950), I.C.S., and Jacqueline Southey. He attended Tonbridge School, 1912-1917, and was admitted at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, on 1 October 1917. Following the outbreak of the First World War, he joined the Royal Garrison Artillery (R.G.A.), and was sent to France in March 1918 as a lieutenant in the 9th Siege Battery, with whom he served as artillery signalling officer until the armistice. Turner was demobilised in February 1919, and matriculated at Cambridge that May, taking his physiology B.A. in 1921. Thereafter, he continued his training as a doctor at the London Hospital (M.R.C.S., 1926; B. Chir., M.B., Cantab., 1937). He joined the Sudan medical service in 1929, and was an Ear, Nose and Throat (E.N.T.) specialist at the government hospital in Jerusalem, 1938-1943. He served in India as a major in the R.A.M.C, 1944-1945, and with the B.A.O.R, 1946. After the war, he was appointed E.N.T. Registrar at Portsmouth Eye and Ear Hospital, and in 1953 joined Queen Alexandra Hospital, Cosham. He died on 23 August 1980.
From the guide to the Frederick Turner: Letters to his father from Flanders, 1918-1919, (Cambridge University Library, Department of Manuscripts and University Archives)
