The Turner Family: Dynasty, Tragedy and Scandal.

(Mills, Money and Power)

A talk by Sue Shuttleworth

After various SPAG visits and talks over the last few years, and learning that William Turner of Helmshore Mills had eleven daughters and no sons, I asked myself the questions “What happened to the money?” “Who did they marry?”

In the midst of the Turner’s increasing prosperity, the 1826 East Lancashire Weavers’ Uprising happened as a result of the downward spiral of wages and severe poverty of many of the workers.

At the same time as this was happening all the regional and national newspapers were writing column after column about a scandal, and subsequent trial about the abduction of Ellen Turner.  ‘A tale of anguish, deceit and violation of the domestic heart’.  It was the ‘Wagatha Christie’ of its time. Played out in the newspapers rather than on Social Media.

In 2016 while cycling down Australia I came across the name of Edward Gibbon Wakefield as an important part of the establishment of the state of South Australia, back in late December 1836, and read as an aside that he had been imprisoned for 3 years in Newgate prison for abducting, and then marrying a teenage heiress.  Ellen Turner, born in Blackburn, was the daughter of William Turner the wealthy calico printer and High Sheriff of Cheshire.

Thank you to Sue for a very well researched talk on this interesting local family.