The son of Thomas Gurney, he was his assistant and successor as a shorthand-writer in law courts and parliament.
[1] Recognised as a leading figure in his field, Gurney once commented that, of all speakers, he had most difficulty in transcribing the words of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
[6] At the Warren Hastings trial, Gurney acted as shorthand writer for the government; William Isaac Blanchard did so for the defence.
According to Thompson Cooper, writing in the Dictionary of National Biography, this incident was the first public acknowledgment of the verbal accuracy of shorthand.
[3] Gurney was known for printed reports of major contemporary trials from his official shorthand notes.
[1] An early example was from 1770, of the libel case brought by George Onslow against John Horne Tooke.
[3] Samuel Fisher (1742–1803) was a Baptist minister and family connection, having married Rebecca Gurney's widowed mother.