John Napier Wyndham Turner PC CC QC was a Canadian politician and lawyer. He served as the 17th prime minister of Canada from June 30 to September 17, 1984. Turner was Canada’s first Prime Minister born in the United Kingdom since Mackenzie Bowell in 1896.
About John Turner in brief
John Napier Wyndham Turner PC CC QC was a Canadian politician and lawyer. He served as the 17th prime minister of Canada from June 30 to September 17, 1984. Turner was Canada’s first Prime Minister born in the United Kingdom since Mackenzie Bowell in 1896. He was among Canada’s outstanding track sprinters in the late 1940s, qualifying for the 1948 Olympic team. He met Princess Margaret at a party at Balmoral Castle in 1959, and was the Canadian guest at her wedding to Antony Armstrong-Jones in May 1960. Turner and his wife often met the princess during official visits to Canada or during visits to Britain. He died in Canada in 2002, at the age of 91, and is survived by his wife, a long-time Canadian Member of Parliament, and his daughter, a doctor and niece of the author of what is probably the best-known First World War poem, “In Flanders Fields” Turner was married on May 11, 1963, to Gee Kilgour McCrae, then a systems engineer with IBM, who was then a roommate of Turner’s. He had a son, Michael, and a sister, Brenda, born in 1931. Turner served in the cabinet of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau as Minister of Justice from 1968 to 1972, and Minister of Finance from 1972 to 1975. Turner held the Canadian record for the men’s 100-yard dash, but a bad knee kept him from competing in the 1948 London Olympics. He graduated from UBC with a BA in 1949.
Awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, Turner went on to Magdalen College at the University of Oxford, where he earned a BA, Jurisprudence, 1951; a Bachelor of Civil Law, 1952; and an MA, 1957. At Oxford, Turner was a classmate and friend of future Australian Prime Ministers Malcolm Fraser and Bob Hawke, as well as Jeremy Thorpe, future leader of Britain’s Liberal Party. Turner’s mother was loving but demanding of her two children, The family was not wealthy. His mother remarried in 1945 to Frank Mackenzie Ross, who later served as Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia, and the family relocated to Vancouver. Turner stayed on as Liberal leader and led the Opposition for the next six years, leading his party to a modest recovery in the 1988 election. Turner stepped down as an MP at the 1993 election. He is the fourth longest-lived Prime Minister, living to the ageof 91. He was a member of the fraternity Beta Theta Pi, and attended the funeral of Princess Margaret’s only husband, AntonyArmstrong-Jones, in May 2002. He also attended the memorial service for his sister Brenda in May 2003. Turner is the uncle of Canadian politician David Kilgours McCraes McCraed, who is also a long time member of Parliament and the wife of IBM systems engineer John McCraegs McCraills McCravers, who died in 2007. He has a son and a daughter, Michael.
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