Frederick Harding Turner

Frederick Harding Turner (29 May 1888 – 10 January 1915) was a Scotland international rugby union player.

For other uses, see Fred Turner.
Not to be confused with Freddy Turner.

Frederick Turner
Birth nameFrederick Harding Turner
Date of birth(1890-01-10)10 January 1890
Place of birthLiverpool, England
Date of death1 July 1916(1916-07-01) (aged 26)
Place of deathKemmelberg, Belgium
UniversityTrinity College, Oxford
Rugby union career
Position(s) Flanker
Amateur team(s)
Years Team Apps (Points)
- Oxford University ()
Provincial / State sides
Years Team Apps (Points)
1911
  • Whites Trial
 ()
International career
Years Team Apps (Points)
1911-14 Scotland 15 37
Military career
Allegiance United Kingdom
Service/branch British Army
Battles/warsBattle of the Somme

Rugby Union career

Amateur career

Turner was educated at Sedbergh and Trinity College, Oxford.[1] He played for Oxford University, and Liverpool.

Provincial career

He played for the Whites Trial side against the Blues Trial side on 21 January 1911 while still with Oxford University.[2]

International career

He was capped 15 times for Scotland in 1911–14, becoming captain of the squad in 1914.[3] Turner was a back-row forward, who had taken the kicks in the last match before the war: a Calcutta Cup match at Inverleith (Edinburgh), which Scotland lost 15–16.[4] James Huggan and John George Will also played in this match.[4] He also played first-class cricket, for the Oxford University Cricket Club.[5]

Military career

He was killed in World War I[3] in the trenches near Kemmel on 10 January 1915 in a trench occupied by his platoon of the Liverpool Scottish when overseeing the organisation of a barbed wire entanglement.[4][6]

He is buried in an isolated plot in Kemmel churchyard, not in one of the larger Commonwealth cemeteries. He was buried in the Kemmel churchyard next to Percy Dale Kendall who captained England in 1903. His grave was prepared by Dr Noel Chavasse VC and Bar, MC, who also died at Ypres in August 1917. The battlefield consumed both graves and Kendal and Turner's remains have never been found. [2]

See also

References
  • Bath, Richard (ed.) The Scotland Rugby Miscellany (Vision Sports Publishing Ltd, 2007 ISBN 1-905326-24-6)
  1. "Frederick Harding Turner Remembered". Oxford University RFC.
  2. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000576/19110123/110/0009 – via British Newspaper Archive. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  3. Bath, p109
  4. An entire team wiped out by the Great War (The Scotsman)
  5. CricketArchive
  6. CWGC


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