Dr William Turner, singer and composer, was buried in the west cloister of Westminster Abbey. He died on 13th January 1740 aged 88 and his wife Elizabeth died on 9th January aged 85 and they were both buried together on 16th January. He seems never to have had an inscribed gravestone and he has no monument.
He appears to have been a son of Charles Turner, cook at Pembroke College in Oxford. William was educated as a chorister at the Chapel Royal (later becoming a Gentleman there) and in 1667 was Master of the Choristers at Lincoln cathedral. He was a noted high counter-tenor and theatre singer and was Lay Vicar at the Abbey from 1699 to his death. For the coronation of James II he wrote two anthems and undertook musical duties at Court. He was also a Vicar Choral at St Paul's Cathedral in London. Their children were Anne (who married Abbey organist John Robinson and was buried in the cloister in January 1741), William-Partheriche, Edward, Elizabeth (Jenkins), and Catharine (Gardiner). Son William attended Westminster School as a King's Scholar and was vicar of Monk Hesleden in county Durham where he was buried in 1748.
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