Turner, Peter
1802-1873; e.m. 1829

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WM missionary in the South Pacific, born in Manchester. He was appointed to Tonga in 1830. A remarkable mass revival in 1834 encouraged the Synod in 1835 to extend the Mission to Samoa and Fiji in response to invitations and in spite of the legitimate LMS claim to that field. Turner was heartily welcomed as the first resident missionary, but was directed to leave the work and return to Tonga by 1839, when the LMS case could no longer be denied. In 1853 he retired to New South Wales, where he died at Windsor on 2 November 1873.

Sources
  • William Moister, Missionary Worthies, 1782-1885 (1885) pp.211-13
  • A.H. Wood, Overseas Missions of the Australian Methodist Church, vol. 1 (Melbourne, 1975) pp.271-84 and passim
  • Encyclopedia of World Methodism (Nashville, 1974)