AustLit

As a youth, Turner was apprenticed to William Pickering, the publisher and bookseller. After emigrating to Victoria from England, Turner moved in literary circles, founding the Melbourne Review with Alexander Sutherland (q.v.) and later editing the publication. As well as publications in the field of literature, Turner wrote histories - A History of the Colony of Victoria (1904), The First Decade of the Australian Commonwealth (1911) and an account of Eureka, Our Own Little Rebellion (1912). Turner was a member of many societies and institutions, including the Melbourne Shakespeare Society, the Australian Literature Society, the Unitarian Church, in which his sister, Martha, was a preacher, and from 1905 until his death in 1920 was President of the Trustees of the Public Library and National Gallery.