John Gurney

Sir John Gurney (1768-1845) rose to prominence as a defense attorney in several celebrated state trials of the 1790s, including the treason trials of Thomas Hardy and John Horne Tooke (1794), and the conspiracy trial of the United Irishmen James O’Coigly, Arthur O’Connor, and John Binns (1798). He served for many years as a counselor for the King’s Bench until his appointment in 1832 as Baron of the Exchequer. Gurney would also serve as vice-chairman of the Protestant Dissenting Deputies from 1805 to 1816 (Manning, Protestant Dissenting Deputies, 481). In December 1797, John Gurney married Maria Hawes (1768-1849), daughter of Dr. William Hawes of London, a physician noted primarily for his pioneering work with the resuscitation of drowning victims and other causes of asphyxia—a preoccupation that led in 1774 to the founding of the Humane Society. An entry in the Maze Pond Church Book for 1813 reads:  “Resolved that the special and cordial thanks of this Community be given to Mr John Gurney not only for his services as one of our Deputies but for his prompt, unwearied and disinterested attention to those Cases which come before the Deputation and which affect the civil rights of Protestant Dissenters” (vol. 2., f.185). As William Gurney noted in his family memoir: “My Brother entered into public life shortly after the French Revolution, when the efforts made here to repress what was considered the rise of liberty in France, and perhaps in other countries also, created a strong feeling of opposition to our Government on the part of those who were liberal in their views” (Salter, Some Particulars 56).  For more on John Gurney and his family, see Bernard Lord Manning, The Protestant Dissenting Deputies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952); William Henry Gurney Salter, Some Particulars of the Lives of William Brodie Gurney and his Immediate Ancestors. Written Chiefly by Himself (London: Unwin, 1902).