Author: Gurney, Thomas
Biography:
GURNEY, Thomas (1705-70: ODNB)
In 1759 a book was published in Dublin by “T.G.” with the title Poems on Various Occasions. It includes six poems. In 1790 another edition of Poems on Various Occasions was published in Sudbury (Middlesex); the title page identifies the author as “Thomas Gurney, Short-hand Writer.” This edition, as a reprint of an earlier work, would not qualify for inclusion in this database were it not for the addition of three new poems: “The Nature and Fitness of Things,” “On Perseverance,” and “On Recovery from Sickness.” By 1790 Thomas Gurney, whose name is associated with a system of shorthand, had been dead for twenty years. Although it seems at best unlikely that he would have written the fanatically anti-Methodist verse included in Poems on Various Occasions, in the absence of any other candidate this headnote gives brief details about Gurney. He was born in Woburn, Bedfordshire, to John Gurney, a miller, and his wife Hannah Young. He was intended to follow his father’s business but had more interest in scholarly pursuits and he was particularly inspired by reading William Mason’s book about shorthand writing, La Plume Volante (1707). He became a schoolmaster in Luton, Bedfordshire, where he married Martha Marsom on 30 Nov. 1730. They had at least two children including Joseph, who became a shorthand writer and businessman, and Martha who was a printer and bookseller. In 1737 the family moved to London where Gurney probably worked as a shorthand recorder at the Old Bailey for some years before being appointed to an official role in the court in 1748. His Brachygraphy; or Short-Writing was first published in 1750 and went through numerous editions although Gurney’s system was just an adaptation of Mason’s. Martha died in 1756 and Gurney married Rebeccah Wicks at St. Sepulchre, Holborn, London, on 7 Oct. 1756; they had one daughter. He died on 22 June 1770 in the parish of Christ Church, Southwark. The shorthand company bearing his name, Gurney and Sons, operated until late in the nineteenth century and provided services to the House of Commons. (ODNB 5 Nov. 2024; ancestry.co.uk 5 Nov. 2024; Thomas Anderson, History of Shorthand [1882]) SR