William Bertram Turrill, 1890-1961

Abstract

The sudden death of William Bertram Turrill at his home in Richmond, Surrey, on 15 December 1961, at the age of 71, came as a great shock to his many friends and colleagues. Although his health during the previous two years had given some cause for anxiety, he appeared to be endowed with perpetual youth and enthusiasm, and tackled his daily burden of work without apparent signs of weakness. He was born on 14 June 1890, in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, the eldest of four brothers, children of William Banbury and Mary Turrill ( née Homan). His father was the leading provision merchant and, for a long period, Alderman and sometime Mayor of Woodstock. Several of his ancestors had occupied positions of public service, but so far as is known, none was noteworthy in science. Turrill was brought up in this small country town, situated in most attractive surroundings, rich in rare and uncommon plants, an area well known to Sibthorp and many early Oxford botanists. Here he spent his boyhood, searching the woods, fields, broad green lanes, ponds and watercourses for natural history specimens, drawing inspiration and delight from each fresh discovery, and studying them in greater detail over the years, with an increasing specialization on plant-life. This bent for natural history and botany in particular was much encouraged by his mother who came of farming stock. She taught him to prepare botanical and other biological specimens and, being a good gardener, gave him a plot in which to grow a variety of flowers and vegetables. In these early days he discovered new localities for several uncommon British plants, one at least, Helleborus viridis , being recorded in the second edition of G. C. Druce’s Flora of Oxfordshire (1927).