When his friend Isaac D'Israeli left the synagogue after a dispute with the rabbi, Turner persuaded him to have his children, including the future Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, baptised in the Church of England, to give them a better chance in life.

Turner demonstrated Anglo-Saxon liberty "in the shape of a good constitution, temperate kingship, the witenagemot, and general principles of freedom".

[5] In 1981 J. W. Burrow said Turner produced "the first modern full-length history of Saxon England … It was a genuinely pioneering work, and was much admired, and not without reason".

Against the emergence of the French Consulate, Turner promoted the notion of Anglo-Saxon liberty as opposed to Norman tyranny (strong since the 17th century).

His son, Sydney Turner (1814–1879), was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, took holy orders in the Church of England, and became rector of Hempsted.