Frederick Harding Turner

Who was Frederick Harding Turner?

Frederick Harding Turner was a Scotland rugby union player. He was killed in World War I 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.

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

He is not buried in one of the larger commonwealth cemeteries but in an isolated plot in Kemmel Churchyard.