Christopher Turnor (judge)

Sir Christopher Turnor (6 December 1607 – May 1675) was an English judge, knight and royalist.

He was eldest son of Christopher and Ellen Turnor of Milton Ernest, Bedfordshire. He matriculated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 1623. In later years he contributed towards the rebuilding of the college chapel, begun in 1668.

In November 1633 he was called to the bar at the Middle Temple. On 7 March 1639 he was appointed Receiver General of South Wales, jointly with William Watkins. He was elected a bencher in 1654.

During the English Civil War he supported the royalist side, and at the Restoration in July 1660 was made serjeant-at-law, third baron of the exchequer, and knighted. In October of that year he was placed on the commission for the trial of the regicides.

At the Gloucester autumn assizes in 1661 he displayed a degree of circumspection unusual in that age. One William Harrison was missing under suspicious circumstances, and John Perry swore that his mother Joan and his brother, Richard Perry, had murdered him. The grand jury found a true bill, but Turnor refused to try the case until Harrison's body should be produced. Sir Robert Hyde, before whom the same case came at the next Lent assizes, was less cautious. He allowed the case to proceed, the jury convicted the prisoners, and they were executed; but some years afterwards their innocence was established by Harrison's reappearance. Turnor surrendered the receivership of South Wales on 16 June 1662.

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