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Mary Turnbull was a historian lauded for her lifetime of literary research writing contributing to the documentation of Asian history, and for her documentary work on the history of Singapore. Her expertise on Singapore history and citations from her book The Straits Settlements was instrumental to the case presented by the Singapore legal team to the International Court of Justice, in claiming sovereignty over Pedra Branca in 2008. (See Sovereignty over Pedra Branca/Pulau Batu Puteh, Middle Rocks and South Ledge ).

Mary was born the only child to a native farm-owner father and a schoolteacher mother from the Isle of Man, in a farm not far from Wooler, Northumberland. In the 1920s Coventry grew to be the center of UK motor industry, and her family migrated to the thriving city when her father decided to give up farming for a more lucrative career in motorcar engineering. Throughout her childhood Mary led a happy but simple life despite having to live with different relatives during the Great Depression and during the German air raids in World War II.

In 1988 Mary retired from her position in the university. She continued to write, and travel around Britain and New Zealand and on occasions, to Singapore and Malaysia for visits. In the 1990s she was commissioned by The Straits Times to compile the history of the Singapore newspaper company and in 1995, Dateline Singapore: 150 Years Of The Straits Times that resulted from nearly 3 years' of work, was launched to inaugurate the 150th anniversary of the founding of the newspaper title.

Mary died on the afternoon of September 5, 2008 of a ruptured aorta, just 5 hours after discovering the condition in a routine check-up. She had also been working on writing the third edition of A History of Singapore prior to the time of her death.

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Constance Mary Turnbull", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0