Gurney, Joseph

JOHN, an English philanthropist, the brother of Elizabeth Fry ( q.v. ), and her companion in her memorable visits to the prisons of Great Britain and the Continent of Europe, B. at Earlham Hall, Norfolk, 1788. When four years of age he lost his mother; and his early education was intrusted to his three eldest sisters. At a later period he went to Oxford, where he enjoyed many advantages at the university, without becoming a member or subscribing to the Thirty-Nine Articles. His preference ultimately became settled in favor of the views and profe ion of the Quakers, among whom he was born; and consistently with them he lived and died, by no means finding in them any barrier to the fullest and freest a ociation with any other body of Christians, or to a personal friendship with the ecclesiastical dignitaries of the Norwich diocese. G. was the author of numerous works, which gained him a highly respectable rank in the republic of letters. Among these may be mentioned his Notes on Prisons and Prison Discipline; E ays on the Evidences, Doc trines, and Practical Operations of Christianity; A Win ter in the West Indies, ., ., besides numerous minor tracts on religious and philanthropical subjects. D. 1847. Memoirs of this truly excellent man were published by J. B. Bra i thwaite, in 1854.