Mary Turnbull

Constance Mary Turnbull (9 February 1927 – 5 September 2008) was a British historian known for her work on Southeast Asian history, in particular on the history of Singapore. Her expertise on Singapore history and citations from her book The Straits Settlements was instrumental to the case presented by the Singapore legal team to the International Court of Justice, in claiming sovereignty over Pedra Branca in 2008.

Early life and education Mary Turnbull was born the only child to David Turnbull (1900-1961), a native farm-owner in the Cheviot Hills, and Edna Mary Williamson (1901-1991), a schoolteacher from Laxey in the Isle of Man, on a farm not far from Wooler, Northumberland. In the 1920s Coventry grew to be the centre of UK motor industry, and her family moved to the thriving city when her father, who had been forced give up farming as a result of the Great Depression, found a job in motorcar engineering at the Rootes car factory. Throughout her childhood, Mary Turnbull led a happy but simple life despite having to live with different relatives during the Great Depression, while her parents were both looking for work in Coventry and being evacuated several times during World War II. She often described the experience of living through the Coventry Blitz and later, as a university student, the "doodlebugs" (V-1 flying bombs) in London.

Mary Turnbull went to study at Bedford College, London in 1944 and graduated in 1947. She later joined the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, but on her marriage to businessman Leonard Rayner in 1962, moved to Singapore. Here she was a member of the History Department until 1971 when she moved to Hong Kong to take up a post as lecturer at Hong Kong University's History Department.