Henry Gyles Turner
Henry Gyles Turner (12 December 1831 – 30 November 1920) was an English-born Australian banker, writer and historian who lived most of his life in Melbourne.
Turner began his career in London as a clerk and writer. In 1854–55 he moved to Melbourne after a dispute with his boss. There he joined the Bank of Australasia and soon rose in the banking world. He married Helen Ramsay in 1855, and they settled in South Yarra. Turner also pursued cultural interests, writing for magazines and helping start literary journals.
In 1870 Turner became general manager of the Commercial Bank of Australia. Under his leadership the bank grew rapidly and spread its branches across Victoria and beyond. In the 1880s, Victoria’s real estate boom led banks to lend heavily to land companies and speculators. When the boom collapsed in the early 1890s, confidence fell and deposits drained away. In 1893 the Commercial Bank suspended withdrawals. Turner organized a difficult reconstruction, calling on shareholders to provide capital and converting fixed deposits into longer-term preference shares. The bank survived but remained financially weak for years. A capital write-down in 1897 and the creation of a Special Assets Trust Co. helped to pay off debts. Turner retired as general manager in 1901, after thirty-one years in the job.
Besides banking, Turner was active in Melbourne’s literary and cultural life. He helped found and edit the Melbourne Review and wrote on literature, history and society. In 1898 he co-authored The Development of Australian Literature with Alexander Sutherland. He published A History of the Colony of Victoria in two volumes in 1904. He later wrote The First Decade of the Australian Commonwealth (1911) and Our Own Little Rebellion: The Story of the Eureka Stockade (1913).
Turner was also involved in various clubs and libraries and supported the arts. He served as president of the Melbourne Shakespeare Society (in 1905) and contributed to public institutions as a trustee and donor. He was part of the Unitarian church, where his sister Martha Turner became the first woman in Australia to be ordained as a pastor (1873).
Turner and Helen had no children. His wife died in 1914. He spent his later years at Bundalohn in St Kilda and remained active in public life and philanthropy. He died on 30 November 1920, aged 88, in Melbourne. His will left a substantial estate and generous gifts to libraries, galleries and Melbourne charities. One notable bequest funded The Henry Gyles Turner Scholarship at the University of Melbourne to encourage agricultural studies, and a fund known as the Helen Gyles Turner Samaritan Fund supported various public relief efforts.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 13:29 (CET).