Kenneth Turpin (13 January 1915 – 14 September 2005) was a Provost of Oriel College, Oxford, from 1957 to 1980.
[2] Turpin was born in Ludlow, Shropshire, England, in 1915 and was educated at Manchester Grammar School.
Entering Oriel to read Greats, quickly changing to history, he graduated in 1939 with a first class degree and was awarded his BLitt for a thesis on Robert Harley in 1940.
Due to lung trouble he was considered unfit for military service, he entered the Treasury as a temporary civil servant and from 1943 to 1945 served as assistant private secretary to Clement Attlee, then Deputy Prime Minister.
With World War II over, Turpin returned to Oxford as an administrator, from 1947 to 1957 he was secretary of faculties, after which he took up the offer of a professorial fellowship at Oriel, on Sir George Clark's retirement in 1957, he was elected Provost.