John Turner (miser)

John Turner (1 March 1800 – 2 March 1883) was an English draper, landlord, and moneylender, whose perceived behaviour led to his reputation as a miser.

By dint of excessively hard work, long hours, and self-denial, this smallholder's son rose from the position of a draper's assistant via well-to-do shop-owner, to become a rich property-owner and sought-after lender to the moneyed residents and visitors of Harrogate. However, his extreme and pecunious personal habits drew the attention of local people, who saw him pay in full for buildings and land, but deny himself and his family the comforts of life, and hoard and recycle waste material to make pennies, alongside the great profits he made in his primary occupations.

After Turner's death his biography, comparing him to the miser Daniel Dancer, was printed and copied in the Press, and around the same time his life – and perhaps his legacy – was celebrated with an expensive stone memorial, in Grove Road Cemetery, Harrogate.