Quotes:Turner, Samuel

Zirkoff, Boris

Turner, Samuel. English traveller, a kinsman of Warren Hastings, b. about 1749 in Glouchestershire; d. in London Jan. 2, 1802. Given an East India cadetship, 1780, he rose to a regimental captain by 1799. News having reached Calcutta, in February 1782, of the reincarnation of the Tashi Lama in the person of a child, Warren Hastings proposed to dispatch a mission to Tibet, to strengthen the friendly relation established by George Bogle (q.v.) who had recently died. Turner was appointed chief of the mission, Jan. 9, 1783. Following the route through Bhutan taken by Bogle, he reached the monastery of Tashi-Lhiinpo near Shigatse on September 22, 1783, and had an audience with the infant Lama on Dec. 4 at Ter-pa-ling. His mission was successful and its results are embodied in his work: An account of an Embassy to the 668 Court of the Teshoo Lama of Tibet (London, 1800, 4to). This account was for many years the only published account of a journey to Tibet written by an Englishman, as those of Bogle and Manning (q.v.) did not appear until much later. Turner remained in India for some years engaged in military service, and returned to his native country about 1798.

Source: Boris de Zirkoff, «H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings», vol. 4, pp. 667-668