he may have been one of the founding members of the Rankenian Club.5 In the Club, he was close to his fellow divinity student Robert Wallace, the preacher and later minister William Wishart, the surgeon George Young, and the Edinburgh Professor of Universal History Charles Mackie, although each of these friendships later cooled.6 Apparently disillusioned with a career in the Church of Scotland, Turnbull instead sought employment in the Scottish universities and was elected on 14 April 1721 as a regent at Marischal College Aberdeen.7
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At Marischal, Turnbull joined a phalanx of young, innovative colleagues, including the distinguished mathematician and leading Newtonian, Colin Maclaurin (1698–1746). Maclaurin was, however, unhappy at Marischal and Turnbull shared his friend’s disaffection with academic life at the college. His correspondence shows that in May 1723 he ventured to ask Lord Molesworth to help him find a post as a travelling tutor but without success. In 1724–25 a political battle within the college, which involved both Maclaurin and Turnbull, precipitated their departure. In the spring of 1725 Maclaurin moved to the Edinburgh Chair of Mathematics, while Turnbull took an unofficial leave to become the tutor to Alexander Udny.8 Turnbull and Udny travelled to Groningen via London in the autumn of 1725, but Turnbull was forced to return to Marischal because he had not been granted a formal leave.9 In January 1726 he was again lecturing and took his class (which included Udny) to graduation in April. Since he was back in Aberdeen in the autumn of 1726, it would seem that he was neither retained by the Udnys nor able to find another position as a tutor. During the ensuing session he put himself forward as a candidate for the vacant Chair of Ecclesiastical History at St. Andrews and solicited the support of Maclaurin and Charles Mackie in Edinburgh.10 However, his bid for the Chair failed and he decided to abandon academe, if only temporarily. He resigned from Marischal in the spring of 1727 and was given the first honorary Doctor of Laws degree awarded by the college upon his departure.11
Having left Aberdeen, Turnbull became a tutor to Andrew Wauchope of Niddrie. To prepare for travel and study on the continent, Wauchope
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was enrolled in Mackie’s history class at the University of Edinburgh in the autumn of 1727.12 Three years later we find Turnbull and his pupil in Groningen, where Turnbull attended classes on natural and Roman law.13 Turnbull may have kept up his legal studies in the hope of securing another academic appointment because he sounded out Mackie about the possibility of negotiating a deal with Mackie’s colleague William Scott which would have seen Turnbull succeed Scott as the Edinburgh Professor of Moral Philosophy.14 But this scheme also proved abortive and he continued in the employ of the Wauchope family. By October 1730, Turnbull and Wauchope had left the United Provinces and were in Paris en route to Italy. In the French capital Turnbull socialized with Dr. (later Sir) John Pringle and apparently visited the Chevalier Ramsay as well as other scholars to whom he was introduced by letters from Colin Maclaurin.15 A year later, Turnbull was in the south of France and disillusioned with the life of a travelling tutor. Although he was enjoying the company of another tutor, the Cambridge classicist Jeremiah Markland, he reported to Mackie that he would not be going to Italy as initially planned and that he expected to be in England by the spring of 1732. Turnbull was anxious to find another pupil and asked Mackie to put out feelers on his behalf.16 Mackie did so, only for Turnbull to reject the offer of a position when he arrived back in London in May 1732. Moreover, Turnbull now chose not to return to Scotland, presumably because he believed his prospects were better in England.17
Turnbull’s last surviving letters to Mackie speak of repeated disappointment and chart the decline of his friendships with Mackie and Maclaurin. By September 1733 Maclaurin was no longer responding to his letters, and there appears to have been no further contact between Mackie and Turnbull after this date.18 Turnbull was now entirely reliant upon the assistance of
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his English patrons and his circle of fellow Scots in the metropolis, which included the poet James Thomson, the physician Alexander Stuart, and his old friend from Edinburgh William Wishart.19 Although still willing to be a tutor, he decided to take orders in the Anglican Church. To that end, he matriculated at Exeter College Oxford in 1733 and was granted a Bachelor of Civil Law degree.20 He may have been encouraged in his decision by the Low Churchman and soon to be Bishop of Derry, Thomas Rundle, who had affiliations with Exeter College and was an associate of James Thomson, William Wishart, and one of Turnbull’s English patrons Charles Talbot.21 Turnbull’s defense of the credibility of Christ’s miracles and his attack on the Deist Matthew Tindal in his early pamphlets on religion would have received a sympathetic reading from Rundle, who likewise defended the reasonableness of Christianity against Deists like Tindal. Moreover, Turnbull’s pamphlets would have put him in good stead with Low Churchmen more generally in his search for preferment. Nevertheless, Turnbull failed to find long-term employment in the years 1733 to 1735 and was obliged to accept an offer to become a travelling tutor for the future third earl of Rockingham, Thomas Watson.22 Unfortunately their Grand Tour is poorly documented. The travel diaries of Alexander Cunyngham (later Sir Alexander Dick) record that he and the artist Allan Ramsay socialized with Watson and Turnbull in Rome in December 1736.23 Otherwise we know little about their itinerary or the duration of their trip.
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Prior to leaving London, Turnbull subscribed to the fledgling Society for the Encouragement of Learning, which eventually began formal meetings in May 1736. Initially the Society’s membership was largely made up of antiquarians and Scots living in London, leavened with a few Jacobites, physicians, and men of science.24 Turnbull’s involvement in the Society marks a turning point in his career, for he now began to move in the circles of virtuosi and antiquarians in the metropolis centered on Dr. Richard Mead. It is unclear when Turnbull first met Mead, but by the late 1730s Turnbull had access to Mead’s spectacular library and collections. Turnbull cultivated Mead’s patronage, not least in dedicating his Three Dissertations (1740) to Mead.25 Mead, however, rebuffed Turnbull’s overtures. Consequently, Turnbull remained on the periphery of the metropolitan antiquarian community.26 By contrast, in 1737 Turnbull succeeded in befriending Mead’s close associate, the Rev. Thomas Birch. Turnbull probably first encountered Birch in the Society for the Encouragement of Learning and, in 1739, Turnbull turned to Birch for help with his ordination as an Anglican priest.27 Even though Turnbull did not understand the mechanics of the process, he managed to be ordained by one of the leading Low Churchmen of the day, the Bishop of Winchester, Benjamin Hoadly, to whom he had apparently been introduced by the Bishop’s protege and Birch’s friend, Arthur Ashley Sykes.28
Faced with an uncertain future, Turnbull turned to his pen to improve
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his finances. In 1739 he published a greatly expanded third edition of his popular pamphlet, A Philosophical Enquiry concerning the Connexion betwixt the Doctrines and Miracles of Jesus Christ, as well as his Treatise on Ancient Painting. The year 1740 saw the appearance of The Principles of Moral and Christian Philosophy, his Three Dissertations, and An Impartial Enquiry into the Moral Character of Jesus Christ. A spate of books followed in 1741, including his heavily annotated translation of Johann Gottlieb Heineccius’s A Methodical System of Universal Law, his repackaging of the plates from the Treatise of Ancient Painting under the title A Curious Collection of Ancient Paintings, and his student edition of Marcus Junianus Justinus’s history. Then, in 1742, he produced his last major publications, his Observations upon Liberal Education, in all its Branches and his abortive translation of Blainville’s Travels. Most of these works reveal that Turnbull was desperately, and largely unsuccessfully, searching for patronage. He dedicated his books to a number of prominent public figures, notably his old acquaintance the Bishop of Derry, Thomas Rundle, and the Duke of Cumberland. The Duke did not accept Turnbull as a client, but
