Henry Gunning 

Henry Gunning (1768-1854) graduated from Christ’s College, Cambridge, in 1788. He then served more than fifty years as esquire bedell at Emmanuel College. He adopted Whig politics in the late 1780s and was thereafter a consistent supporter of Parliamentary reform.  He left a valuable record of his life in Cambridge in his posthumous Reminiscences of the university, town, and county of Cambridge from the year 1780 (2 vols., 1854).  As he relates in the Reminiscences, “I cannot remember the time when I was not a Reformer” (1.300), which partially explains his friendship with Flower and his support of the Intelligencer. Gunning, along with Elias Fordham, were the only reformers who spoke against Charles Yorke at a political meeting in Cambridge at the end of May 1796.  Flower remarked in the Intelligencer on 4 June 1796 that Gunning’s “public spirit on this, as well as on a former occasion, must ensure him the approbation of every friend to his country, in spite of the mean, illiberal insinuations of the apostate editor of the Cambridge Chronicle.” In April 1797, Gunning, along with Robert Hall, Benjamin Flower, Olinthus Gregory, Peet Musgrave, Thomas Luccock, Ebenezer Hollick, Jr., and many others, attended a County Meeting for the purpose of drawing up a petition for Parliamentary reform, after which a public disturbance occurred, including a mob attack on the carriage of Mr. Hollick and Mrs. Jennings’s house in Bridge Street.  Gunning recorded the experience in his Reminiscences:

On the day of the County Meeting the Duke of Bedford and the party who supported the address dined together at the Cardinal's Cap.  They were decidedly of opinion that a very great majority, especially of the freeholders of the county, were in favour of the petition, and several resolutions were passed in consequence.  In the course of the evening, a numerous and drunken mob filled the court-yard of the inn, and were very riotous in the street, particularly opposite Pembroke College.  The Duke of Bedford was to sleep at Mr. Hollick's, at Whittlesford; and when his carriage was ordered out, it was quite evident that unless some steps were taken to protect him, he would be exposed to a grievous and violent outrage.  The rabble of the town were all against us, and the police (such as it was) acted under the influence of the opposite party.  Those who had dined together set about clearing the yard, a work of considerable difficulty and some danger.  This being effected, the gates were closed, which the mob endeavoured in vain to break open.  The Duke's carriage and four, preceded by two outriders well mounted, dispersed the mob, but some person had taken the linchpin from Mr. Hollick's carriage, which contained several ladies; the carriage was prevented from overturning by the closeness of the crowd, and fortunately, after some little delay, was enabled to proceed.  Many persons were injured, but, extraordinary as it seemed to me who witnessed the whole proceedings, no lives were lost.   (2.68-69)