D. H. TURNER (1931-1985): A PORTRAIT

T H E sudden death of D. H, Turner on i August 1985 deprived the British Library of ascholar of international distinction, an energetic and imaginative promoter of its treasures,and a memorable—if unpredictable—character. In this special number of The BritishLibrary Journal a small group of his friends and colleagues offers in his memory a series ofarticles, each in some degree associated with material on w ĥich he himself M ôrked duringa professional career of almost twenty-nine years.

Derek Howard Turner was born at Northampton on 15 May 1931, the only child ofMaurice Finnemore Turner and his wife Eva, nee Howard. Maurice Turner, born in1890, had served with distinction in the First World War. After an initial period atWinchester House School, Brackley, Derek obtained a scholarship to Harrow, where heentered in the summer of 1945, just as the school was returning to normal after the severedisruptions which it suflfered during the Second World War. In 1950 he moved on toOxford, with a Harrow scholarship to read Modern History at Hertford College, where hegraduated in the summer of 1953. Between then and his arrival at the British Museum,where he took up his post as Assistant Keeper of Manuscripts on 3 December 1956, heundertook a period of hospital work and tried his vocation in the Anglican Benedictinecommunity at Nashdom Abbey in Buckinghamshire. At Nashdom his incipient interest inliturgical studies was encouraged, not least by daily practice, and he came into contactwith Dom Anselm Hughes, doyen of specialists in the history of medieval music. Bothexperiences were to play a fundamental part in his subsequent career.

At the British Museum Derek rapidly established himself as a specialist in medievalliturgical studies and almost immediately began to publish in this field. His interest inillumination developed as something of a by-product, since so many liturgical manu-scripts are lavishly decorated. His first experience of organizing an exhibition camein 1958, when he was largely responsible for a display of Byzantine manuscripts, and thesebooks remained among his special interests for the rest of his life. Also in 1958 he wasfortunate enough to be involved in the selection ofthe group of illuminated manuscriptsto be purchased from the Dyson Perrins collection, before it was offered on the openmarket. In this and in the resulting publication (British Museum Quarterly^ xxiii, 1960/1)he worked in collaboration with the late Julian Brown. When Julian resigned from theservice ofthe Trustees in December i960, in order to accept the Chair of Palaeography at

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HM Queen Elizabeth II being conducted round the exhibition 'The Golden Age of Anglo-SaxonArt' by D. H. Turner, 1985

King's College, London, Derek succeeded him in special responsibility for the Museum'sincomparable collection of illuminated manuscripts.

His new responsibility led Derek to devote himself at once to a strenuous programme ofstudy in art history. He was keen to make available to other scholars and to a more generalpublic the fruits of his own work. Alongside his extremely erudite articles on suchtreasures as the Evesham and Oscott Psalters, he published during the 1960s asequence of popular works, all aimed at the ordinary museum visitor and usually linked tothe general exhibition of illuminated manuscripts which he himself had carefully revised.A new volume of Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts^ drawing on acquisitionssince 1928, was published in 1965 and a Guide to the display in the Grenville Libraryappeared in 1967. The progress of English medieval book illustration was sketched in aspecial publication offered by the British Museum to the Fourth InternationalConference of Bibliophiles, which took place in London in the summer of 1965. Twobooklets in the Museum's 'Gulbenkian' series, on English Gothic and on EuropeanRomanesque illumination respectively, came out in 1965 and 1966. These provedparticularly successful and have since become standard introductions to their periods.Much of their content was in fact used by Derek himself as teaching material, when heobtained the sanction of the Keeper of Manuscripts to undertake some part-timeuniversity teaching for the Art History courses at Cambridge and East Anglia, both ofwhich at the time lacked specialists in medieval painting. He proved an excellent andimaginative teacher, getting on well with his students and obtaining some veryperceptive work from them.

Liturgical studies were not neglected: an impressive series of editions and articlesconcerned with tenth- and eleventh-century service books, from England and Germanyin particular, appeared during the same period. Also during the 1960s Derek undertookthe chairmanship of two old and distinguished learned societies concerned with liturgicalstudies, the Plainsong and Medieval Music Society in 1964 and the Henry BradshawSociety in 1967. Dom Anselm Hughes had for many years been a leading figure of bothand many other friends and colleagues were among their memberships. However, aninjection of fresh enthusiasm and firm practical leadership was needed at the time andDerek provided it, inspiring others with his own sense of responsibility for these Victorianamateur bodies which had already contributed so much to British academic life. Hederived particular pleasure from the eightieth birthday celebrations ofthe Plainsong andMedieval Music Society, which took place in Oxford, at Keble College, in September1968. These included a Pontifical High Mass in honour of the Society's patron, StGregory the Great, sung in Latin, during which Derek himself acted as Master ofCeremonies with zest and aplomb.

In 1972, on the simultaneous retirement of T. C. Skeat and C. E. Wright, who had beenKeeper and senior Deputy Keeper in the Department of Manuscripts for more than adecade, Derek was himself promoted Deputy Keeper. In the following year theDepartment, with the other library elements ofthe British Museum, became part ofthenewly constituted British Library. Derek's principal responsibility thereafter was for

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the increasingly important programme of internal exhibitions and of loans from themanuscript collections to exhibitions in other institutions all over the world. It was a taskthat appealed to the impresario in his character. Within the Library he was particularlyinvolved with three major projects: The Christian Orient (1978), The Benedictines inBritain (1980), and The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art (1984). The private view partystaged for the second of these, which was opened by the Benedictine Cardinal Archbishopof Westminster and to which the head of every current Benedictine community in thecountry was invited, allowed him to give full rein to one of his favourite pastimes, creatinga guest list on which every style and title should appear with absolute accuracy. He spentmany happy hours in the bookstacks, consulting directories in pursuit of this perfection!On a more academic level he proved consistently successful in presenting material in aform attractive to the ordinary visitor, at the same time providing the input essential toscholars. The original suggestion behind The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art, stagedin conjunction with the British Museum to mark the millennium of the death of St^thelwold, was his and several major treasures which had almost certainly left Englandbefore the Norman Conquest were restored to their homeland for the occasion.

Outside the Library, Derek's personal enthusiasm and inspiration lay behind severalmajor schemes which brought manuscripts from the British national collection before aninternational public. Outstanding among these projects were the loan of the Gospels ofTsar Ivan Alexander to Bulgaria in 1977 and that ofthe Moutier-Grandval Bible to theJura in 1981. Each manuscript had an overwhelming local significance for its borrowers.The Bulgarian Gospels was returning to its native land for the first time since thefourteenth century and went on display in Sofia amid a blaze of nationalistic publicity.The loan of the Moutier-Grandval Bible, which had been in the Jura throughout theMiddle Ages, inspired the formation of a society of its 'Amis', who are still organizinglectures, visits, and other cultural events in the name of 'la vieille dame', as theyaffectionately call the manuscript. Derek was also the moving spirit behind the extremelysuccessful British Library exhibition Renaissance Painting in Manuscripts^ shown at theJ. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu and the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York in1983-4, though he publicly contributed only a general introduction to the catalogue and,maintaining his lifelong refusal to cross the Atlantic, was not present at either of theopening ceremonies.

Foreign loans of this kind inevitably inspire lengthy and complex negotiations. TheseDerek enjoyed to the full. He became deeply involved with the Foreign Office over thevisit of Magna Carta to Washington for the bicentennial celebrations in 1976. Three yearslater he spent a great deal of time in discussion with the Russian cultural attache and hisstaff concerning the loan of the Leningrad Bede for the opening of the Bede MonasteryMuseum at Jarrow and, later, for a brief showing with other Jarrow manuscripts inBloomsbury. He also loved to pore over the more complicated clauses of the British andAmerican government indemnity arrangements, both of which came into general usewhile he was dealing with outside loans. He was, however, less happy with the social andpublic relations side of exhibitions work. Outsiders were frequently bewildered when he

disappeared at a crucial moment, leaving others to entertain distinguished visitors or toconduct VIPs round work that he himself had done.

From the time of his promotion to Deputy Keeper, Derek produced noticeably lesspublished work and what he did write was almost entirely linked to current exhibitions, orto recent acquisitions such as the Becket Customary. He did little further research onthe existing collections of the Library. This was not wholly due to the burden ofadministration that went with his new position. The unexpected death of his mother inthe winter of 1966/7, after which his father spent his remaining years in a nursing home,led to a radical change in his domestic life. Until then he had lived simply and quietly in amodest bedsitter on the edge of Kew Gardens, seeing few people outside the Museumcircle. In 1968, after toying with the idea of buying himself a small flat in Richmond, hedecided to move into the fiat to which his parents had retired at Henley on Thames. Thiswas the ground fioor of a large late Victorian house, with a considerable garden. The moveinevitably involved him in a long daily rail journey into central London. His new gardenswiftly became a major and abiding interest and the performance of his rose bushes or theinstallation of a goldfish pond was hable to provide the basic topic of conversation overmany months. He made few alterations to the interior of the flat, but over the yearssuperimposed items acquired to his own taste. These included several shaggy and brightlycoloured Greek rugs and a considerable number of vivid Tibetan wall-hangings, all ofwhich contrasted strangely with his mother's original blue-grey damask curtains anddelicate Victorian water-colours. At Henley he indulged in a series of varied andrapidly changing hobbies and interests. The Orthodox liturgy, homoeopathic medicine,oriental cultures (especially Japanese and Tibetan), extra-sensory perception and evenforms of divination, each in turn occupied his evenings and weekends. 'Hi-fi' installationsand personal stereos succeeded each other with confusing rapidity and when, after yearsof apparent disdain, he finally succumbed to the lure of television, it became a consumingpassion. Indeed there were times when he could give the impression of having watchedevery programme on all four channels throughout the previous twenty-four hours. Thedevelopment of the video-recorder provided a refinement to be seized on with avidity.

Derek never learned to drive a car and his basic living expenses were modest. He was ameticulous keeper of personal accounts and worried if he found himself unable to explainwhat had become of even a quite small amount of his income. Clothes interested him.When he first joined the Museum staff he dressed smartly but unmemorably in low-keyflannels and tweeds, but those who knew him in later years will remember him asincreasingly fiamboyant in appearance. To a considerable collection of brocade waistcoatsfrom Halls of Oxford he added colourful shirts from Athens, Swiss suits, silkneckerchiefs, fedoras in black and olive green, a long black raincoat with a scarlet lining,and a vast collection of shoes of every description. He was in the habit of taking sohtaryforeign holidays, returning again and again to favourite places in Austria, Switzerland,and Greece for rest and relaxation, but apparently never making any great effort to explorethe countryside or visit its major sights.

A major extravagance was a first-class season ticket from Henley to Paddington. On this

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journey he took a lively interest in the personalities and affairs of his fellow passengers,most of whom were connected with the City or with the law, both areas dear to his ownheart. For many years he routinely took his lunch in a small restaurant in Soho and theretoo he became acquainted with a number of people far outside his professional circle,including a family of Hungarian variety artistes and a Special Branch officer who had beeninvolved with the French resistance. This last acquaintance once arranged for him to visitthe famous 'Black Museum' at Scotland Yard. None of these people became real personalfriends and one was always left with the impression that it was the various interests thatthey represented rather than their individual personalities that proved attractive.

Socially Derek was seldom entirely at ease with his academic peers or his con-temporaries. Scholars visiting the Library and seeking him out to discuss problems ofmutual interest often found him aloof, if not positively forbidding in manner. But he wasoften surprisingly happy with people much older or much younger than himself,especially if they were completely detached from his professional interests. He frequentlyrecounted with relish the substance of his most recent conversations with an octogenariansculptress neighbour, or with the local undertaker who doubled as a jobbing builder andundertook various small improvements around the Henley flat. The mothers of several ofhis colleagues remember him as a charming, lively, and entertaining companion. When hediscovered that the young son of a commuting acquaintance had become fascinated byAnglo-Saxon literature, he invited his father to bring him to the Library, arranged forthem to see and handle the priceless Beowulf mznuscnpt^ and thereafter kept up a friendlyand encouraging correspondence. For the visits of amateur groups concerned withparticular manuscripts of local interest but lacking specialist knowledge he notinfrequently laid on inspired sessions, at which he himself presented the relevant materialwith exactly the right blend of expertise and human interest. After his death his colleagueswere surprised and touched to learn that he had for some time been subscribing to theeducation of a series of Tibetan refugee children in northern India, and had been incorrespondence with them.

Although Derek emerges from these recollections as a very self-contained person, hewas by no means as self-sufficient as he liked to appear. The sense of community withinthe British Museum complex at Bloomsbury provided him with a very necessary socialsupport throughout his working life there. Unused to a close-knit family life, having beenborn an only child into a somewhat mature household, his education in residentialcommunities at Harrow and at Oxford, followed by his short experience of Nashdom, hadaccustomed him to living within the structure of an old-established and hierarchicacademic society. The British Museum which he joined in 1956 was in many ways justsuch a society, with a strong sense of continuity and well-defined levels of responsibility.As a medievalist dealing with book painting, he found himself drawn into a group ofspecialists, mainly from the antiquities and prints and drawings departments, with whomhe shared his interests and discoveries over coffee in the old canteen, much as he mighthave done in a research common room. This kind of exchange among as well as withindepartments survived the creation of the new British Library (and the demise of the

canteen). That be himself was not unaware of his debt to and dependence upon theMuseum community became apparent as he grew older. On a number of occasions hespoke of the sense of finality with which he viewed his eventual retirement. A few daysafter his fiftieth birthday, in a very revealing exchange with Daniel Waley, then Keeper ofManuscripts, he declined to consider relinquishing his administrative responsibilities forexhibitions and loans for several months. Although this would have allowed him to makerapid progress with the preparation of the Yates Thompson catalogue, a project which heregarded as potentially his magnum opus, he argued that it would cut him off from thatdaily collaboration with his colleagues which he regarded as the mainspring of his socialexistence. And that would be too high a price to pay.

JANET BACKHOUSESHELLEY JONES

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WRITINGS OF D. H. TURNER

'An Early Thirteenth Century Premonstratensian Gradual', Analecta Praemonstratensia, xxxv

(1959), PP- 193-7-'The Crowland Gradual', Ephemerides Liturgicae, lxxiv (i960), pp. 168-74.'The Prayer-book of Archbishop Arnulph II of Milan', Revue BenMictine, lxx (i960), pp. 360-90.With T. J. Brown and G. M. Meredith Owens, 'Manuscripts from the Dyson Perrins CoUeetion',

British Museum Quarterly^ xxiii (i960), pp. 27-38.Note on the music in W. Ullmann (ed.), Liher Regie Capelle. A Manuscript in the Biblioteca

Publica, Evora, Henry Bradshaw Society, xcii (London, 1961), pp. 47-51.The Missal of the New Minster, Winchester, Henry Bradshaw Society, xciii (London, 1962).'The Bedford Hours and Psalter', Apollo, lxxvi (1962), pp. 265-70.'The "Odalricus Peccator" Manuscript in the British Museum', British Museum Quarterly, xxv

(1962), pp. 11-16.'A Twelfth Century Psalter from Camaldoli', Revue B^nUictine, lxxii (1962), pp. 109-30.'The Siegburg Lectionary', Scriptorium, xvi (1962), pp. 16-27.'A io th - i i t h Century Noyon Sacramentary', in F. L. Cross (ed.), Studia Patristica V (Papers

Presented to the Third International Conference on Patristic Studies held at Christ Church, Oxford,igsg. Part III, Liturgica, Monastica et Ascetica, Philosophic a), Texte und Untersuchungen zurGeschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, vol. lxxx (Berlin, 1962), pp. 143-51-

'The Penwortham Breviary', British Museum Quarterly, xxviii (1964), pp. 85-8.'The Evesham Psalter', >w/-wa/ of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, xxvii (1964), pp. 23-41.Early Gothic Illuminated Manuscripts in England (London, British Museum, 1965).Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, series v (London, British Museum, 1965).With M. Scheele, English Book Illustration 966-1846 (London, British Museum, 1965).With C. R. Dodwell, Reichenau Reconsidered, Warburg Institute Surveys, no. 2 (London,

'Illu^mination from the School of Niccolo da Bologna', British Museum Quarterly, xxix (1965),

pp. 84-9.

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'The "Reichenau" Sacramentaries at Zurich and Oxford', Revue B^n^tctine, lxxv (1965), PP-240-76.

Romanesque Illuminated Manuscripts in the British Museum (London, 1966).'From the Library of Erie George Millar', British Museum Quarterly, xxx (1966), pp. 80-8.Illuminated Manuscripts Exhibited in the Grenville Library (London, British Museum, 1967).'List of the Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts Owned by Eric Millar', British Museum

Quarterly, xxxiii (1968), pp. 9-16.*The Eric Millar Bequest to the Department of Manuscripts; I. The Medieval and Renaissance

Manuscripts', ibid., pp. 17-37.'The Development of Maitre Honore', ibid., pp. 53-65.'Two Rediscovered Miniatures of the Oscott Psalter', ibid., xxxiv (1970), pp. 10-19.'Manuscript Illumination', in The Year 1200 (New York, 1970), vol. ii, pp. 133-9-The Claudius Pontificals (from Cotton MS. Claudius A. Hi in the British Museum), Henry Bradshaw

Society, xcvii (London, 1971).'Sacramentaries of Saint Gall in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries', Revue Benedictine, Ixxxi

(1971), pp. 186-215.With T. J. Brown, 'Francis Wormald, 1904-72', Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, xiv

(1972), pp. 1-6.'Principal Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts in the British Library', British Museum Society

Bulletin, no. 14 (1973), pp. 10-13.'The Wyndham Payne Crucifixion', The British Library Journal, ii (1976), pp. 8-26.'The Customary of the Shrine of St Thomas Becket', The Canterbury Chronicle, no. 70

(Canterbury, 1976), pp. 13-21.'The Orthodox Church', in The Christian Orient (London, British Library, 1978), pp. 13-21.With P. Jebb, D. M. Rogers, and R. Stockdale, The Benedictines in Britain (London, British

Library, 1980).'Hughes, Anselm', in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London, 1980), vol. viii,

P- 765-'Customary of the Shrine of St Thomas Becket, Canterbury 1428', in C. de Hamel and R. A.

Linenthal (eds.). Fine Books and Book Collecting. Books and Manuscripts Acquired from Alan G.Thomas and Described by His Customers on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday (LeamingtonSpa, 1981), pp. 20-1.

'La Bible de Moutier-Grandval et la Grande Bretagne', in Jura: treize siecles de civilisationchretienne (Delemont, 1981), pp. 38-9.

The Hastings Hours. A i^th-Century Elemish Book of Hours Made for William, Lord Hastings, Nowin the British Library, London (London, 1983).

Introduction to T. Kren (ed.). Renaissance Painting in Manuscripts: Treasures from the BritishLibrary (New York and London, 1983), pp. ix-xii.

With Janet Backhouse and Leslie Webster, The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art: g66~io66(London, British Museum and British Library, 1984).

'The Rutland Psalter', National Art-Collections Eund Review (London, 1984), pp. 94-7.'The Anglo-Saxon Achievement', History Today, xxxiv (1984), pp. 58-9.

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