Samuel Gurney (1786–1856)

At the age of 14, Gurney was placed in the counting-house of his brother-in-law, Joseph Fry (1777–1861),[7] a tea merchant and banker, at St Mildred's Court, Poultry, in the City of London.

[8] The wealth that came to Gurney from his father-in-law and what was bequeathed to him by his father, helped him to make rapid progress as a partner in Richardson and Overend, with which he had become connected in 1807.

[9] Soon after Gurney entered the firm, it began to assume proportions that made it, for about forty years, the largest discounting house in the world.

[11] In March 1841 he entertained Captain Henry Dundas Trotter, Commander William Allen, and a large number of the officers of the expedition at a farewell dinner at Upton.

Gurney was a liberal patron of the infant colony of Liberia, kept up a correspondence with President Roberts, and for his many gifts was rewarded by his name being given to a town of Gallenas in 1851.

In 1849, Gurney undertook a tour of Ireland, where he made considerable gifts to poor people still suffering from the effects of the famine.

Samuel Gurney's wife died at Ham House, Essex, on 14 February 1855, and in the autumn of that year, his own health being much broken, he moved his residence to Nice.

He left nine children and upwards of forty grandchildren, but his eldest son, John Gurney (1809–1856) of Earlham Hall, did not long survive him, dying on 23 September 1856.

Gurney was the author of a pamphlet To the Electors of South Essex 1852, in which he recommended the election of his son-in-law Sir Edward North Buxton.

[15] The children's names – John, Samuel, Henry Edmund, Sarah, Catherine, Elizabeth, Priscilla, Rachel and Richenda – appear in the Gurney Family Tree at p. 28 of [16] U.S.:.