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Updated: April 30, 2025
At Earlham, the home of the Gurneys, we learn how much may be done by a family, and how widespread its influence for good or evil may become. Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton certainly stands foremost, not alone amongst the East Anglians, but the philanthropists of later years. At the age of sixteen young Buxton went to Earlham as a guest.
Fry, had, indeed, united herself more closely with the Society of Friends; but her example had not then been followed by any of her brothers and sisters. ‘I know,’ wrote Sir Thomas, in later years, ‘no blessing of a temporal nature—and it is not only temporal—for which I ought to render so many thanks as my connection with the Earlham family. It has given a colour to my life.
John Gurney of Earlham, born in 1749, was educated in the principles of the Society of Friends, but as he advanced in life, and associated with persons of various Christian denominations, the strictness of his religious opinions was much relaxed, and he showed liberality of sentiment towards others, even if they were indifferent to all spiritual concerns.
One of them was the work of a moneychanger. “I am a banker myself,” said Gurney, and the fact seems to have been the cause of reproachings on the part of some of the Norwich “Friends.” A letter of his appears in the chronicles of “The Gurneys of Earlham,” in which he writes: “I suppose my leading object in life may be said to be the bank.
On the right is a green level, a smiling meadow; grass of the richest decks the side of the slope; mighty trees also adorn it, giant elms, the nearest of which, when the sun is nigh its meridian, fling a broad shadow on the face of the pool; through yon vista you catch a glimpse of the ancient brick of an old English hall.” This old hall stood on the site of an older hearthstead called the Earl’s Home, where lived some “Sigurd or Thorkild” in the days “when Thor and Freya were yet gods, and Odin was a portentous name.” Earlham stands to-day as it did in Borrow’s time, and, no doubt, other Norwich lads at times lie out on the hillside dreaming of the sea-rovers of Scandinavia who ravaged the hearths and homes of the marshland folk of East Anglia.
I determined, first of all, to master the principles of speech. I remembered very well, indeed, the admonition of Prof. J. J. Mills, President of Earlham College, on the day I left the institution. "You have been a hard-working student," he said, "but your success will never be complete until you learn to talk as others talk. Cure your stammering at any cost."
Elizabeth Fry was born in Norwich, on the 21st of June, 1780. She was the third daughter of John Gurney, of Earlham, Norfolk, and Catherine Bell, daughter of Daniel Bell, merchant in London. Mrs. Bell was a descendant of the ancient family of the Barclays of Ury in Kincardineshire, and granddaughter of Robert Barclay, the well-known apologist of the Quakers.
Possibly some echoes of the marvellous exertions of Howard in prison reform had reached her Earlham home, and produced, though unconsciously, an interest in the subject which was destined to bear fruit at a later period.
From the foregoing eulogy, one would gather that his brother John was a pupil of the old painter. This may well have been the case, for Crome had many such pupils, amongst whom, as has lately been shown, were, in earlier years, some of the sisters Gurney of Earlham.
Amongst the Norwich celebrities whom Borrow met, was Joseph John Gurney of Earlham, the large-hearted Quaker brother of Elizabeth Fry. Mr. Gurney seems to have come across him one day while he was fishing, and to have remonstrated with him for taking pleasure in such “a cruel diversion.” He was a tall man, “dressed in raiment of a quaint and singular fashion, but of goodly materials.
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