Henry Frederic Lawrence Turner (30 December 1908 – 17 December 1977) was a British Conservative Party politician. As an officer in the Royal Artillery during the Second World War, he survived three years as a prisoner of war of the Japanese; he passed his captivity by lecturing on politics. After the war ended he moved into politics and was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Oxford. Although generally moderate in politics, his support for British intervention in Suez led him to resign the Conservative Party whip. He lived an extravagant lifestyle far beyond his means, which brought his career to a premature end and led to bankruptcy.
Family
Turner's family were from Goring-on-Thames in Oxfordshire; he was the grandson of the author George Grossmith. He was sent to Radley College for his education, and then to the University of Reading and to Exeter College of the University of Oxford. He went to work in the family paint and varnish business, of which he later became managing director.
Prisoner of war
After the Second World War broke out, in 1940 Turner enlisted in the Royal Artillery as a gunner, equivalent to a private. He served in Thailand, and was commissioned as an officer, but was captured by Japanese forces in early 1942 and held as a prisoner of war. The Japanese forced him to work on the Burma Road; Turner gave lectures on politics to other prisoners of war during his captivity. He weighed only 7 stone (44.5 kg) on his return.
Post-war politics
Turner had intended to rejoin the family business but found that his uncle who had run it had died and that the only job offered to him was on unacceptable terms. Instead he became managing director of a trust company. Turner's family home in London was in Lancaster Gate, in Paddington. When the sitting Labour Member of Parliament for Paddington North announced his resignation, Turner was adopted as Conservative Party candidate for the byelection on 2 November 1946.
Turner appealed to the centre, believing that the ex-service men would switch to the Conservatives. He used the slogan "Turner for Freedom – or More Hard Labour", and put out a poster with the punning headline "Turner gain, Paddington". The result of the byelection was a Labour win by 2,917 votes, reduced from 6,545 in the previous general election. He was again adopted as candidate for the division in the 1950 general election, at which there were five candidates; The Times noted the "exemplary courtesy" between Turner and Labour candidate William J. Field. Turner worked some of the compact estates of the division very hard, although his religious belief led him to do no work on Sundays or on Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday. Turner was again defeated, by 3,790 votes.
Oxford byelection
In 1949 Turner bought a home at Ballinger in Buckinghamshire. The next year he rejoined the family paint company as chairman and joint managing director. In August 1950, the sitting Conservative MP for Oxford Quintin Hogg succeeded to the Viscountcy of Hailsham leaving a vacancy. Turner had good connections to Oxfordshire politics through his father, who had been chairman of South Oxfordshire Conservative Association for many years. From a field of 40–50 applicants, the local association chose Turner to fight the byelection.
Facing a straight fight with Labour candidate Kersland Lewis, Turner highlighted the issues of housing, the cost of living, defence and leadership, and claimed the support of a number of Conservative trade union shop stewards. Turner described the campaign as "all very respectable" and said that he had dealt with political issues only in his campaign; he had made 10 outdoor speeches every day including at factories.
Parliament
Turner won the byelection, increasing the Conservative majority from 3,606 to 7,198. In his maiden speech, he spoke of the need for better supply of metals to the factories of his constituency. Later that year, Turner spoke on behalf of fellow former prisoners of war in support of a motion calling for compensation. He declared that he was lucky to survive, had never seen a bandage issued by the Japanese, and that prisoners had never received any Red Cross supplies.