Joseph Gurney

Joseph Gurney (1744–1815) was an English shorthand-writer and evangelical activist.

Life The son of Thomas Gurney, he was his assistant and successor as a shorthand-writer in law courts and parliament. Before that, he spent a period as a bookseller, and was in business with his sister Martha Gurney. Martha Gurney was a Baptist and abolitionist, active in the production of pamphlet literature. Gurney also associated with the radical William Fox, and was a friend of William Hawes.

Gurney was employed officially after 1790 to report civil cases in courts of law. In 1786 he attended as a reporter to some slave-trade inquiries in the House of Lords.

At the Warren Hastings trial, Gurney acted as shorthand writer for the government; William Isaac Blanchard did so for the defence. The stenographic world was small, and Blanchard had previously been Gurney's assistant. Indeed, by the 1780s newspaper reporting was undermining the business model of commercial court reporters. In May 1789 the House of Commons called on Gurney to read, from his notes Edmund Burke's words accusing Sir Elijah Impey of murder; and a vote of censure on Burke was then passed. According to Thompson Cooper, writing in the Dictionary of National Biography, this incident was the first public acknowledgment of the verbal accuracy of shorthand. By 1773, with the trial of John Mostyn, he was publishing reports as books. There were around 40 of those, and Gurney employed clerks to transcribe for him. The Trial of George Gordon, Esquire, commonly called Lord George Gordon (1781 or 1782) The Whole Proceedings on the Trial of the Hon. Major Henry Fitzroy Stanhope: At a Court Martial Held at the Horse Guards, in the Month of June 1783. The Sentence of the Court-martial... for the Trial of the Hon. Lieut. Gen. James Murray, Late Governor of Minorca, on the Twenty-nine Articles Exhibited Against Him by Sir William Draper (1783) The trial of John Horne Tooke, on a charge of high treason (1794, 1795) The Trial of Thomas Hardy for High Treason: At the Sessions House in the Old Bailey, on Tuesday the Twenty-eighth, Wednesday the Twenty-ninth, Thursday the Thirtieth, Friday the Thirty-first of October, and on Saturday the First, Monday the Third, Tuesday the Fourth, and Wednesday the Fifth of November 1794 (1794 and further volumes) The Trial of William Stone for High Treason, at the Bar of the Court of King's Bench, on Thursday the Twenty-Eighth, and Friday the Twenty-Ninth, of January 1796 (1796). William Stone was a Unitarian radical accused of being a French agent. The Trial of Robert Thomas Crossfield for High Treason: At the Sessions House in the Old Bailey on Wednesday the Eleventh and Thursday the Twelfth of May 1796 (1796) The trial of Edward Marcus Despard, esquire: For high treason, at the Session house, Newington, Surry, on Monday the seventh of February 1803, with William Brodie Gurney.

Gurney also edited The Gospel Magazine.

Family Gurney married Rebecca Brodie (1747–1818), daughter of William Brodie of Mansfield. Their two sons were Sir John Gurney, and William Brodie Gurney. Their daughter Elizabeth (1770–1840) was a close friend of Eliza Gould.