John Turner

John Turner (1 March 1800 – 2 March 1883) was an English draper, landlord, and moneylender, whose behaviour led to his reputation as a miser.

By hard work and self-denial, Turner rose from being a smallholder's son to the position of a draper's assistant and eventually to that of shop owner. He frequently worked shifts that could begin early in the morning on one day end past midnight on the next. He eventually became a rich property owner and sought-after lender to the moneyed residents and visitors of Harrogate. However, his pecunious personal habits drew the attention of local people, who saw him pay in full for buildings and land, but deny himself and his family the comforts of life, and hoard and recycle waste material to make pennies, alongside the great profits he made in his primary occupations.

In the year following Turner's death, a biography comparing him to the miser Daniel Dancer was printed and copied in the British press. A revised and updated version of his biography by Harrogate historian Stephen Abbott was printed in two of his books, and a shorter commentary appeared in The Harrogate Advertiser in the 21st century. A stone memorial to Turner stands in Grove Road Cemetery, Harrogate.

Background John Turner was born on 1 March 1800, "who by dint of thrift and hard work had acquired money".

in the late 1830s Turner moved to Ripon for a short period, and had a son John Frances Turner Vant, with Jane Vant from Ripon,

Career Bradford

Turner declined farm work, served his draper's apprenticeship at an unknown location, so around 1831 he offered it to Turner, and Turner "thought he could turn the business around". He economised on transport costs by walking everywhere, He "occasionally got a lift in a carrier's wagon, but whether he paid for the ride is doubtful, as parting with money was with him one of the unpardonable sins". As a moneylender, he was "sought after by persons who were in financial embarrassment ... Tradesmen in their winter difficulties, property-owners with deeds to mortgage, sought him without ceasing". Turner was "never known to be entangled in a lawsuit".

Property investment Turner made money out of his savings through "actively searching for investments". It was founded opposite Stonefall Avenue, Starbeck, in 1810, after Harrogate hoteliers refused to have it in their own town. it was replaced by a new workhouse in Knaresborough, In 1879, the school transferred to a new building in East Park Road, Harrogate, was renamed as Victoria Park School, and was purchased by Thomas W. Sayer. By the time Turner died his former workhouse building was being used as a hospice. He died in Harrogate, Turner's funeral was held on 8 March 1883. At midday, the funeral procession left the Crown Hotel, Harrogate, with seven coaches containing relatives and tenants following the coffin. The funeral service was conducted at Christ Church, High Harrogate, by Reverend C. J. Hamar, after which he was buried at Grove Road Cemetery.

figure closely associated with early Harrogate, the late John Turner, of Starbeck. The penurious habits of this individual are well known, and perhaps to some extent he merited the title given him by a Bradford contemporary – miser; but though charity was a quality foreign to his nature, his sense of justice, on the other hand, was so acute, that we believe he was easier satisfied upon the question of per cent, than has been many a man more generally credited with charitable proclivities.

Aftermath During the forty years after Turner began to earn his fortune, one of his former Bradford apprentices did very well, behaving somewhat unlike his former master Turner. That lad "amassed a handsome fortune in a neighbouring county [and lived] honoured and respected as a public benefactor".

Turner's gravestone, on the Anglican consecrated portion of Grove Road Cemetery, is described by Stephen G. Abbott as, "a large, gothic style family memorial". Soon after Turner died, his biography by a "Bradford contemporary", in which he was titled "Harrogate miser" and compared to Daniel Dancer, was printed in detail in The Bradford Observer, and repeated in two of Robert Ackrill's newspapers, The Knaresborough Post and The Pateley Bridge & Nidderdale Herald. In 2004, Turner was still remembered by The Harrogate Advertiser in Harrogate as a miser under the heading, "The story of a Starbeck miser", with a photograph of his memorial, and in two books by Stephen G. Abbott.