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Shallet Turner Royal Society LL. D. ( ca. 1692 – 13 November 1762) was a Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, and a Fellow of the Royal Society. As a Regius Professor of Modern history, he was notorious for treating the position as a sinecure.
In 1724, King George I established Regius Professorships in Modern History and Modern Languages at both Oxford and Cambridge. Those to be appointed, at a salary of £400 a year, were to be "persons of sober conversation and prudent conduct... skilled in modern history and in the knowledge of modern languages". In reality, the position was a sinecure in the gift of the King. In 1735, not long after the death of Samuel Harris, the first of the new regius professors at Cambridge, Turner was appointed to succeed him. The History of the University of Cambridge says of the appointment that Turner had "no qualifications whatever apart from his being a fellow of Peterhouse".Damian Riehl Leader, Victor Morgan, Peter Searby, A History of the University of Cambridge: 1750–1870 (Cambridge University Press, vol. 3, 1988, ), p. 233John Le Neve, Thomas Duffus Hardy, Fasti ecclesiae Anglicanae (University press, 1854), p. 664
Shortly after Turner's appointment as regius professor, a government clerk asked him for information on his work. Turner replied that it was more than seven years since a list of King's Scholars had been made, that all such places were currently vacant, and that the documents and nomination forms could be found in the office of the Home Secretary. In response to this, no action was taken. At the end of the Summer term of 1737, Thomas Gray wrote with heavy irony to Horace Walpole –
Turner continued as regius professor from 1735 until 1762. A historian of the University reports that "Turner held the professorship for seven and twenty years and did absolutely nothing." Denys Arthur Winstanley, Unreformed Cambridge: a Study of Certain Aspects of the University in the Eighteenth Century (Arno Press, 1935, ), p. 156 Manfred Schlenke, "Anfänge einer wissenschaftlichen Geschichtsschreibung in Großbritannien im 18. Jahrhundert" in Karl Hammer, Jürgen Voss, Historische Forschung im 18. Jahrhundert (Ludwig Roehrscheid Verlag: Pariser historische Studien, 1976), p 321
The antiquary William Cole (1714–1782) wrote of Turner –
On 26 March 1741, Turner was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.Edward and John Chamberlayne, Magnæ Britanniæ Notitia, Or, The Present State of Great-Britain (S. Birt and others, 1748), p. 203
In 1748, Turner was a subscriber to Colin Maclaurin's Account of Sir Isaac Newton's philosophical discoveries.Colin Maclaurin, Patrick Murdoch, An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries: in Four Books (Printed for J. Nourse, 3rd edition, 1775), p. xviii In 1748, Turner resigned his fellowship of Peterhouse, and in 1749 Thomas Gooch, as Bishop of Ely, filled the vacancy by appointing one Edward Osborne.Charles Durnford, Edward Hyde East, Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Court of King's Bench (E. Lynch, L. White, P. Byrne, J. Jones, and W. Jones, vol. 2, 3rd edition, 1792), p. 308
An anonymous pamphlet appeared in 1751 which complained of various abuses at the University and said of Turner that "If the Professor of Modern History and Modern Languages was to reside with proper assistants in the University, it is not to be doubted but that a numerous audience would regularly attend a course of lectures so useful and entertaining".A sincere wellwisher to our universities, Free Thoughts upon University Education; occasioned by the present debates at Cambridge (M. Cooper, Thomas Hollingworth, 1751), p. 14 However, neither the king nor the government was inclined to take any action, so such criticisms had no effect whatever.
In 1750, Turner was noted as a new subscriber to Archibald Bower's The History of the Popes (1748–1766).Archibald Bower, The History of the Popes: From the Foundation of the See of Rome to the Present Time (Vol. 2, 1750), p. xxvi In 1759, he was a subscriber to a new translation of The Tragedies of Sophocles by Thomas Francklin, the University's Regius Professor of Greek.Sophocles, ed. Thomas Francklin, The Tragedies of Sophocles (R. Francklin, 1759), p. 26
Edmund Gosse, in his biography of Thomas Gray, notes that the post held by Turner came to be seen as a complete sinecure. In 1762, when Turner had been dead two weeks, Gray's friends lobbied to secure the regius chair in modern history for Gray, as "It was not expected that any lectures should be given; as a matter of fact not one lecture was delivered until after Gray's death". In the event, Gray lost out to Lawrence Brockett, but he later secured the position after Brockett's death in a fall from his horse in 1768. Edmund Gosse, Gray (Adegi Graphics LLC, 2002, ), p. 133
Turner's Will was proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury.
In his edition of Smyth's The Lessons of History (1955), Wallace Brockway says dismissively of Turner –
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