General Sir Tomkyns Hilgrove Turner KC (12 January 1764 – 6 May 1843), known as Sir Hilgrove Turner, is best known as the officer who escorted the Rosetta Stone from Egypt to England.

Military career

Turner was commissioned as an Ensign on the 20th of February, 1782, into the Third Regiment of Foot Guards. In 1792 he was a Lieutenant and Captain. Turner and the Stone were on board the recently captured French ship HMS Egyptienne when it made its way to England in September, 1801. He claimed that he had personally seized the Stone from General Jacques-François Menou and carried it away on a gun carriage. He also asserted that when the French learned of his intentions, that they removed the packaging for the Stone and that "it was thrown upon its face".Parkinson, Richard. The Rosetta Stone: British Museum Objects in Focus. p. 29. The British Museum Press. 2005. 978-0-7141-5021-5 There are other versions of how the English forces captured the Stone from the French, so it is unknown how reliable his account is. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in December 1804. In 1801 he was made Colonel, in 1808 Major-General. He became Colonel of the 19th (or The 1st Yorkshire North Riding) Regiment of Foot on 27 April, 1811 (his rank in the regiment being different from his rank in the army). From 1812 to 1830 he held the post of

Groom of the Bedchamber Groom of the Chamber was a position in the Household of the monarch in early modern England. Other ''Ancien Régime'' royal establishments in Europe had comparable officers, often with similar titles. In France, the Duchy of Burgundy, and in Eng ...

to George IV (including the period when the latter acted as Prince Regent during his father's mental illness). He would later become Lieutenant Governor of Jersey from 1814 to 1816 and Governor and military Commander-in-chief of Bermuda, which was elevated to an Imperial fortress in the aftermath of the independence of the colonies that became the United States of America, from 1826 to 1832, and in 1827 became a

Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Guelphic Order The Royal Guelphic Order (german: Königliche Guelphen-Orden), sometimes referred to as the Hanoverian Guelphic Order, is a Hanoverian order of chivalry instituted on 28 April 1815 by the Prince Regent (later King George IV). It takes its name ...

Personal life

Turner was the son of Richard Turner, a surgeon in Uxbridge, Middlesex and his wife Magdalen Hilgrove, a native of Jersey. In 1839 his daughter Charlotte Esther Turner married

Henry Octavius Coxe Henry Octavius Coxe (20 September 1811 in Bucklebury, Berkshire, England – 8 July 1881 in Oxford) was an English librarian and scholar. The eighth son of Rev. Richard Coxe and Susan Smith, he was educated at Westminster School and Worcester ...

, Bodleian librarian. Coxe's predecessor

Bulkeley Bandinel Bulkeley Bandinel (21 February 1781 – 6 February 1861) was a British scholar, ecclesiastic and librarian. Early life He was born in the parish of St Peter-in-the-East, Oxford, first-born son of Rev. Dr. James Bandinel of Netherbury by his wif ...

was Tomkyns Turner's second cousin. Some years after his death Turner's children were involved in a lawsuit over the legacies left them in the wills of some Hilgrove kinsmen.

References

External links

, - {{DEFAULTSORT:Turner, Tomkyns Hilgrove 1764 births 1843 deaths Fellows of the Royal Society Governors of Bermuda British Army generals Governors of Jersey British Army personnel of the Napoleonic Wars Scots Guards officers Military personnel from Middlesex Knights of the Order of the Crescent Recipients of the Order of St. Anna People from Uxbridge