Sybella Gurney

Sybella Gurney (6 July 1870 – 11 June 1926) was a housing reformer who 'made important and largely unrecognized contributions to British community design theory and practice'.

Personal life Sybella Catherine Nino Gurney was born in Paris, France in 1870, the daughter of Archer Thompson Gurney, a clergyman and hymn writer, She completed a college course at Oxford in literae humaniores in 1894. She then became the first librarian of the Nettleship Collection (today the library at St Anne's College, Oxford), named for Henry Nettleship. Following her death, The Sociological Review wrote that

the classical culture and ancient philosophy of [her] Oxford days remained always the substantial background of her mind. But after passing through the School of Literae Humaniores, she took up economic studies... and was deeply influenced by John Stuart Mill's plea for voluntary co-operation.

In Philadelphia in 1910, With him, in 1920, Gurney founded Le Play House, a centre for sociological research and study. Following their marriage, the couple lived for some time in America, before settling in Hampstead Garden Suburb. and on the Council of the National Housing Reform Council. She worked closely with Henry Vivian on housing schemes in Oldham, Letchworth, Kettering, Leicester, and the New Forest. Patrick Geddes recalled her as 'from her youth one of those still too rare social workers who know they also need to think; and further, one of the too few thinking people who realise that the better their ideas, the more they need to be worked at, and towards useful applications'.

Gurney Drive in Hampstead Garden Suburb is named in her memory.