After several more noted cases during the early 19th century, he was knighted and made a Baron of the Exchequer on 13 February 1832, a position he gave up in 1845 due to ill health, dying the same year.

Two months after qualifying as a barrister he was hired as junior counsel to defend Daniel Isaac Eaton for libel, and after his senior failed to turn up, ran the case himself.

[1] Gurney later defended Robert Thomas Crossfield for complicity in the popgun plot, and then prosecuted Lord Cochrane for spreading rumours of Napoleon's death to make money on the stock exchange.

[5] Gurney was noted as an independent, albeit harsh judge, and held the position for over a decade until he was forced to resign in January 1845 due to ill health, dying two months later on 1 March 1845.

[6] He was buried in a large sarcophagus-form grave in Old St Pancras Churchyard in London, to the east side of the church, south of the distinctive monument to Sir John Soane, and he is listed on the Burdett-Coutts Memorial Sundial.