A Dictionary of the Booksellers and Printers who Were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1641 to 1667/Turner (William)

TURNER (WILLIAM), printer to the University in Oxford. 1624-43. Took up his freedom on May 24th, 1622 [Arber, iii. 685], and his first book entry is recorded July 18th, 1623. [Arber, iv. 102.] In 1624 he was appointed printer to the University in succession to James Short. In 1631, in company with Michael Sparks, senr., and other London booksellers, he was tried before the Court of Ecclesiastical Commissioners on the charges of printing unlicensed literature and books that were other men's copies. [Domestic State Papers, Charles I, vol. 188 (13); 190 (40).] Much dissatisfaction was expressed by Dr. Richard Baylie, the Vice-Chancellor, in a letter to Archbishop Laud, dated January 16th, 1636-7, at the wretched character of the literature that came from Turner's press. Dr. Baylie writes, "He has been urged to print Joannes Antiochenes, and adopt some course for advancing the learned press of Oxford, but without any satisfaction … he prints nothing but almanacks and school-books." [Domestic State Papers, Charles I, vol. 344 (20).] This letter may perhaps furnish a clue to the statement made in Wharton's Remains of Laud [ii. 174], that Turner had in 1634 abstracted the Savile Greek type. He returned it in February, 1639/40. He died about October, 1644, and was succeeded as University Printer by Henry Hall, q.v., who had been one of his apprentices, and who had purchased Turner's presses, letters and utensils. [Madan, Early Oxford Press, p. 276; Chart, p. 29.