James Turner was a Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

-born merchant and political figure in Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, Canada. He sat for Ontario division in the Senate of Canada from 1884 to 1889.

He was born in Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

, the son of John Turner and Catherine Mitchell, was educated there and came to Canada in 1848, settling in Hamilton

Hamilton, Ontario

Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, Hamilton has become the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe...

. In 1850, Turner married Caroline Greene. He was a wholesale grocer, vice-president of the Bank of Hamilton and a director of the Northern and Pacific Junction Railway. He also served as president of the Hamilton Board of Trade and of the Hamilton and Lake Erie Railway, later amalgamated with the Hamilton and North-western Railway. Turner died in office at the age of 63.