Margot Turner

{{Infobox military person

|name= Dame Margot Turner

|image=

|image_size=

|alt=

|caption=

|nickname=

|birth_date= {{birth date|1910|05|10|df=yes}}

|birth_place= Finchley, Middlesex

|death_date= {{Death date and age|1993|09|24|1910|05|10|df=yes}}

|death_place= Brighton, East Sussex

|placeofburial=

|allegiance= United Kingdom

|branch= British Army

|serviceyears= 1937–1968

|rank= Brigadier

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|unit=

|commands= Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps (1964–68)

|battles= Second World War

|awards= Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire
Royal Red Cross
Mentioned in Despatches

|relations=

|laterwork= Colonel-Commandant Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps (1969–74)

}}

Brigadier Dame Evelyn Marguerite Turner, {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|sep=,|DBE|RRC}} (10 May 1910 – 24 September 1993), known as Margot Turner, was a British military nurse and nursing administrator. A prisoner of war during the Second World War, she resumed her career following liberation and served in a succession of foreign postings.

Nursing career

Turner commenced her nursing career as a student nurse in 1931 at St.Bartholomew's Hospital, London.{{Cite book |last=Smyth |first=John |title=The Will to Live:the Story of Dame Margot Turner DBE, RRC |date=1970 |publisher=Ulverscroft |location=Leicester |pages=1-20, 250-260}} On joining the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMNS) in 1937, Turner was posted initially to Cambridge Military Hospital, at Aldershot and then to India. In 1941 she was posted to Singapore working in Changi hospital and then Alexandra Hospital, until ordered to evacuate before the fall of Singapore.{{Cite web |title=Turner, Dame Evelyn Marguerite [Margot] (1910–1993), military nurse |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-53383 |access-date=2025-03-14 |website=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |language=en |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/53383}}

Turner served with Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service from 1937 to 1949 and Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps (QARANC) from 1949 to 1968. She served as Matron-in-Chief of QARANC and Director, Army Nursing Services (1964–68) and was Colonel-Commandant of QARANC from 1969 to 1974.

Prisoner of war

Turner's obituary in The Independent recounted her horrific experiences as a prisoner of war held by the Japanese.{{Cite web|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-dame-margot-turner-1510255.html|title=Obituary: Dame Margot Turner|date=11 October 1993|website=The Independent}}

The television series Tenko was created by Lavinia Warner after she had worked as a researcher for the edition of the television programme This Is Your Life which featured Turner, and was convinced of the dramatic potential of the stories of women prisoners of the Japanese.Warner and Sandilands Women Beyond the Wire: A Story of Prisoners of the Japanese 1942–45, 1982, dustjacket

Honours

Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE; 1946)
Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE; 1965)

Death

Turner died at St Dunstan's home for disabled ex-servicemen and women in Brighton, East Sussex on 24 September 1993, aged 83 with nurses and her carer Geoffrey Wilcock present.

External links

[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/wills-1406948.html Disposition of Dame Evelyn Turner's will]
[http://www.oxforddnb.com/index/101053383 Oxford Biography Index entry #101053383 (subscription required)]