Newtown, Isle of Wight, and sat in six successive parliaments. He served much on committees. In 1835 he was high sheriff of Norfolk. He was elected fellow of the Society of Antiquaries on 12 March 1818, and was vice-president from 1822–46. He contributed to the society many hundreds of pounds for the publication of Anglo-Saxon works. He was also fellow of the Royal Society (elected 15 Jan. 1818); member of the British Archæological Association from 1843; vice-president of the Norfolk and Norwich Archæological Society; and a supporter of the Norwich Museum and Literary Institute. Gurney lived at Keswick Hall and in St. James's Square, London, where he saw much society till the last twenty years of his life, when he suffered from ill-health. He died at Keswick Hall on 9 Nov. 1864, and was buried in Intwood churchyard, near Norwich. He was the head of the Norfolk family of the Gurneys, and his great wealth chiefly descended to Mr. J. H. Gurney, M.P. for Lynn. He possessed a library of from ten to fifteen thousand volumes, in every one of which he used to boast he had read. He left some interesting diaries, which were not to be published for fifty years. Between 1822 and 1830 he had presented to the British Museum H. Jermyn's manuscript collections for the history of Suffolk; the seal of Ethelwald, bishop of Dunwich; and Roman tesselated pavements from Carthage (Brit. Mus. Guide to the Exhibition Galleries; cf. Michaelis, Ancient Marbles, &c., p. 175 n.) Gurney is described as having a habit of questioning everything: ‘he seemed never to agree with you;’ but he was kind, liberal, and hospitable. He married in 1809 Margaret (d. 1855), daughter of Robert Barclay, M.P., of Ury, Kincardineshire. They had no children. Gurney's portrait (when about twenty) was painted by Opie, and also, about 1840, by Briggs. The ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ for 1865 states that the originals are at Keswick Hall, and copies in the possession of Mr. Daniel Gurney of North Runcton.
[Gent. Mag. 1865, 3rd ser. xviii. 108–10; Burke's Landed Gentry, 1886, vol. i. see ‘Gurney of Keswick;’ Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc. xxi. 254 f.; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Athenæum, 1864, July–December, p. 675; Archæological Journal, xxii. 377.]
GURNEY, JOHN (1688–1741), quaker, was the son of John Gurney (1655–1721), a merchant of Norwich, and a Friend, who had been imprisoned from 1683 to 1685 for refusing the oath of allegiance, and who brought up his family strictly in his own faith. He married Elizabeth Swanton and had four sons. John, the eldest, was born in St. Gregory's parish, Norwich, 16 July 1688, was educated at Norwich and followed mercantile pursuits. Early in his life he became an active quaker, and when twenty-two was accepted as a minister. He devoted himself chiefly to the discipline of the society. In 1719 he attended the yearly meeting in London to propose to the government a further modification in the form of legal affirmation for the relief of conscientious friends, which was granted in 1721. He appears to have travelled with Thomas Story, but his ministrations were chiefly confined to the neighbourhood of Norwich. In 1720 he defended the Norwich wool trade before a committee of parliament from proposed encroachment with such success and ability that Sir Robert Walpole, his personal friend, offered him a government borough. He held, however, that as the law then stood a quaker could not conscientiously sit in parliament. In 1733 he visited London, and preached before the Gracechurch Street meeting. He died, after a long and painful illness, on 23 Jan. 1741 (O.S.), aged 52, and was buried at Norwich. He married, 9 Aug. 1709, Elizabeth, daughter of Joseph Hadduck of Little Barningham; she died 4 Jan. 1757. His two sons, John and Henry, were the founders of Gurney's bank; his descendants in the male line became extinct on the death of Bartlett Gurney of Cottishall in 1802; his brother Joseph was ancestor of the Gurneys of Keswick. Story describes him as a man of fine natural parts and of considerable eloquence. He was particularly esteemed as an arbitrator in cases of dispute owing to his impartiality and acuteness. His only writings are: 1. ‘A Sermon preached at Gracechurch Meeting,’ 1733. 2. ‘Sermons preached by Thomas Story and John Gurney in the Meetings of the People called Quakers,’ 1785. The popularity gained by his defence of the wool trade caused his portrait to be engraved in 1720 in a broadside; underneath the portrait are verses to the ‘Norwich Quaker.’ It is reproduced in the ‘Record of the House of Gournay.’
[Story's Journal, ed. 1747; Collection of Testimonies (London), 1760; J. B. Braithwaite's Memoirs of J. J. Gurney, 1854; Smith's Cat. of Friends' Books; Gough's Hist. of Quakers, iv. 217; Hist. of Norfolk (anon.), 1829, ii. 1264; Gurney's Record of the House of Gurney, pp. 551–5; Burke's Landed Gentry.]
GURNEY, Sir JOHN (1768–1845), judge, son of Joseph Gurney of Walworth, government shorthand writer [see under his father Gurney, Thomas], his mother being a daughter of William Brodie of Mansfield, was born in London on 14 Feb. 1768. He was educated partly at St. Paul's School, partly by the Rev. Mr. Smith of Bottesdale, Suffolk, and,
