Frederick Storrs-Turner

Who is Frederick Storrs-Turner?

The Reverend Frederick Storr-Turner was a British clergyman and campaigner against the opium trade.

Storrs-Turner was a member of the London Missionary Society, rather than a Quaker or nonconformist like many other anti-opium activists, and as part of his missionary work spent some years living in China with his family. He was the father of paediatrician Alfred Jefferis Turner.

After winning an essay-writing competition in 1874, Storrs-Turner helped to found the Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade, and became the Society's secretary. He also edited and published the regular SSOT newsletter, Friends of China.

Storrs-Turner also published a number of other essays and monographs opposing the opium trade, including British opium policy and its results to India and China, Reply to the Defence of the Opium Trade by the Shanghai Correspondent of the Times, as well as works on Christianity.