Eric Gardner Turner

Who was Eric Gardner Turner?

Sir Eric Gardner Turner CBE was an English papyrologist and classicist.

Turner was born in Broomhill, Sheffield. He was educated at King Edward VII School and Magdalen College, Oxford, and taught classics at the University of Aberdeen from 1936 to 1948, although from 1941 to 1945 he served in the Naval Intelligence Division at Bletchley Park. In 1948 he became first Reader in Papyrology at University College, London, and was promoted to professor in 1950. He retired in 1978.

He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1975 and was knighted in 1981.