Stuart Turner

Sidney Marmaduke Stuart Turner (1869 – April 1938) was an English engineer. He was the founder of the company Stuart Turner Ltd.

Biography Turner was born in Shepherd's Bush, London in 1869. Little is known about his childhood or adolescence although it is known that his family's ambitions for him did not include becoming an engineer.

Career After a series of other jobs including an apprenticeship on the Clyde building marine engines, a period at sea and working as an engineer in Jersey (where he installed electricity generating plant), Turner gained employment in 1897 looking after the steam generating plant at Shiplake Court near Henley-on-Thames, England. In those days mains electricity was rare and therefore most large houses had their own electricity generating plants.

It was while working at Shiplake that Turner designed his No.1 Model Steam Engine. He drew up the patterns which he then sent away to be cast. On their return he machined and assembled them and soon showed the finished model at a local exhibition. He then approached Percival Marshall the editor of Model Engineer magazine who wrote an article about the engine. This coverage brought an immediate response and orders for sets of castings flooded in, and a business was established in 1898. He was joined in the business by Alexander Frederick (Alec) Plint in 1903, who he had worked with in Jersey and was trained in electrical engineering.