lions of money. Gurney took a part in the efforts of J. J. Gurney, Fowell Buxton, and Elizabeth Fry for the improvement of prison discipline and the reform of the criminal code. He refused to prosecute a man who had forged his name, knowing well that death was the punishment for such an offence. He also interested himself in the Niger expedition, and in March 1841 entertained Captain H. D. Trotter, Commander W. Allen, and a large number of the officers of the expedition at a farewell dinner at Upton. In 1849 he undertook a tour of Ireland, where he made considerable gifts to poor people still suffering from the effects of the famine. He became treasurer of the British and Foreign School Society in 1843, and held that post till his decease. He was a very liberal patron of the infant colony of Liberia, kept up a correspondence with President Roberts, and for his many gifts was rewarded by his name being given to a town of Gallenas in 1851. In 1853 he accompanied a deputation sent to Napoleon III to express a desire for a long continuance of peace and amity between England and France. His wife died at Ham House, Essex, 14 Feb. 1855, and in the autumn of that year, his own health being much broken, he took up his residence at Nice. Getting worse in the spring of 1856, he hurried homewards, desiring to end his days in his own country among his kindred. He reached Paris, but could go no further, and died in an hotel in that city on 5 June 1856. He was buried in the Friends' cemetery at Barking on 19 June, when an immense concourse of people attended the funeral. He left nine children and upwards of forty grandchildren, but his eldest son, John Gurney of Earlham Hall, did not long survive, dying 23 Sept. 1856. Gurney was the author of a pamphlet ‘To the Electors of South Essex,’ 1852, in which he recommended the election of Sir E. N. Buxton.
The great commercial establishment, which Gurney had brought to a position of unexampled wealth and influence, after passing into less competent hands, was reorganised as a joint-stock company in August 1865, and failed on 10 May 1866, when the liabilities amounted to eleven millions.
[Geldart's Memorials of Samuel Gurney, 1857, with portrait; Bourne's English Merchants, 1886, pp. 467–81; Annual Monitor, 1856, No. 15, pp. 71–79; Illustr. Lond. News, 5 July 1856, p. 16, with portrait; Finlason's Report of the Case of the Queen v. Gurney and others, 1870.]
GURNEY, THOMAS (1705–1770), shorthand-writer, was born at Woburn, Bedfordshire, on 7 March 1705. His father, John, though of an ancient family (his descent is traced in the ‘Record of the House of Gournay’), belonged to the yeoman class, and was a substantial miller with a large family. Thomas was intended for a farmer, but his inclination for books and mechanics was so decided, that when put to farming the lad twice ran away. He then learned clockmaking, and soon afterwards became a schoolmaster at Newport Pagnell and Luton. His connection with shorthand was brought about accidentally. In order to obtain a work on astrology, about which he had a boyish curiosity, he purchased at a sale a lot containing an edition of William Mason's ‘Shorthand,’ which he studied to such purpose that at the age of sixteen he began to take down sermons. His notebook of 1722–3 is still preserved, and shows that at that time he used Mason's system with very little alteration. In 1737 he came to London, and was soon afterwards appointed shorthand-writer at the Old Bailey. The date of the appointment, according to his grandson, William Brodie Gurney, and most shorthand historians, was 1737, and this date corresponds with the length of time during which he is said to have practised at the Old Bailey. Gurney himself, however, in the postscript to the fourth edition of ‘Brachygraphy,’ gives the date 1748. He may have originally practised without an appointment, or may have held a subordinate post for the first ten years. Whichever date be correct, it was undoubtedly the first official appointment of a shorthand-writer known in this or any other country, although there had been isolated instances of the use of shorthand for official purposes. Gurney also practised in ‘all the Courts of Justice in the Cities of London and Westminster, Admiralty Courts, Courts-Martial, and trials in divers parts of the Kingdom’ and ‘in the Honorable House of Commons’ (postscript to 4th edit. of Brachygraphy).
In 1749 Gurney was carrying on business as a clockmaker in Bennett Street, near Christ Church, Blackfriars Road, London, at the same time as he was teaching shorthand at the Last and Sugar-loaf, Water Lane, Blackfriars. On 16 Oct. 1750 he published his system under the title of ‘Brachygraphy, or Swift Writing made Easy to the Meanest Capacity. The whole is founded on so just a plan, that it is wrote with greater expedition than any yet invented, and likewise may be read with the greatest ease. Improv'd after upwards of thirty years' practice and experience,’ London, 12mo, thirty-four engraved pages. The price of subscription was 2s. 6d. on application, and 5s. on delivery. One of the early learners of the system was Erasmus Darwin [q. v.], who contributed some commendatory
