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Sir George Robertson Turner
(1855-1941), Consulting surgeonSitter in 4 portraits
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Adam Pollock, C.B.E.
24 November 2019, 15:37
This is a portrait of my great grandfather, Sir George Turner, K.B.E.,C.B.,F.R.C.S., known in the family as G.R. He was a famous surgeon, working at St Georges Hospital in London and was knighted for taking out George V's appendix .He was made a vice admiral at the start of the first world war, which explains the pictures in uniform shown here. His son, Teddy, (my grandfather) r was killed at Arras. G.R. wrote an entertaining autobiography in 1931 (pub. John Murray) 'Unorthodox Reminiscences'. He knew many famous men of his time from Disraeli downwards, including Oscar Wilde whom he though 'a poseur'.
I remember him, from when I was four years old, as an old man in bed in a darkened room in Brighton. He kept an exercising bicycle in his room which then seemed, to a small child, very curious. I believe have had another son who went to Australia, There is a story that, when old, G.R. wanted to marry his nurse, but this son came back from Oz and married her himself, securing his inheritance. I have lost track of this side of the family.