Peter Turner was educated at Oxford first at St Mary Hall, then at Christ Church. He graduated with a B.A. in 1605.
Turner became a fellow of Merton College, Oxford in 1607,
holding the fellowship until 1648. In 1620 he succeeded Briggs
first to the chair of geometry at Gresham College in London, then, in 1630, to
the Savilian chair of Geometry at Oxford.
Imprisoned after the battle of
Edgehill since he was a royalist, Turner lost both his fellowship and his chair
in 1648. He had strongly supported the royalist cause during the Civil War and
served in a military capacity from 1641.
Turner's quality as a mathematician cannot be judged as he left no mathematical publications but we know he wrote very stylish Latin!
One might reasonably ask how someone who left behind no evidence of mathematical ability came to hold two of the major mathematical chairs in England. It appears mainly due to William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury (1633-45) and religious adviser to King Charles I.
Laud became president of St John's, Oxford in 1611 and then chancellor in 1629. Laud set up a committee which produced the Laudian statutes, new endowments and new buildings in Oxford. Turner was a highly active member of this committee and so came to Laud's notice. Through Laud, Turner gained the appointments to the two chairs.