author
Dawson Turner
1775–1858
Best known as a banker with the soul of a scholar, this English writer and collector brought the worlds of botany, local history, and antiquarian research together in a remarkably wide-ranging life. His books and correspondence helped document both the natural world and the past at a time when many fields were still taking shape.
3 Audiobooks
Architectural Antiquities of Normandy
by John Sell Cotman, Dawson Turner
Account of a Tour in Normandy, Volume 2
by Dawson Turner
Account of a Tour in Normandy, Volume 1
by Dawson Turner
About the author
Born in Great Yarmouth in 1775, he built his working life in the family bank while pursuing serious scholarly interests alongside it. He became known as a botanist and antiquary, with a special interest in cryptogams such as algae, mosses, and fungi, and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.
He wrote and published on botany, travel, and historical subjects, and he was also an energetic collector of manuscripts, drawings, and works of art. His home and circle connected him with many leading cultural and scientific figures of his day, and he is often remembered as an important supporter of learned networks as much as for his own writing.
Turner died in 1858, but his reputation has lasted because of the unusual breadth of his work. He stands out as one of those nineteenth-century figures who moved easily between commerce, science, and history, leaving behind a record valued by botanists, historians, and readers interested in the intellectual life of his time.