Joseph Gurney 1744 - 1815
Joseph Gurney , "Joseph Gurney's position in court probably gave him various advantages in terms of getting the fullest possible account of what went on. He seems to have more or less inherited his post from his father, Thomas Gurney, at his death in 1770. Thomas Gurney's Brachygraphy: or An Easy and Compendious System of Short-Hand (1750) was the most influential manual of the craft in the eighteenth century. Discussing the Gurney edition of Hardy's trial, the Monthly Review, 18 (1795), p. 89, could take it for granted that `Mr. Gurney's name is a good passport for any literary work that owes its existence to the happy invention of short-hand writing'. By this stage, Joseph Gurney and his sister Martha, a bookseller whose main stock-in-trade was divinity, had formed a successful business in the publication of state trials. They may also have benefited from the involve- ment of Joseph's son John Gurney as a barrister for the defence in several cases. Probably cashing in on the treason trials, Joseph and Martha brought out a new twelfth edition of Brachygraphy in 1795. The editors are grateful to Dr Tim Whelan for information with regard to the Gurneys.
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| Born: 1744 | Baptised:
| | Died: 1815 | Buried: Gurney vault, Grave 419 sq.40, London, , , England 1815
| | Family: Gurney |
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