Anna Gurney

Anna Gurney
Gurney by John Linnell - 15 Feb 1824
Born	December 31, 1795
Died	1857 Keswick, United Kingdom
Resting place	St Martin, Cromer Road, Overstrand, Norfolk, NR27 0NT

Anna Gurney (1795–1857) was an English scholar and philanthropist, a member of the Gurney family of Norfolk.

Anna Gurney was born on 31 December 1795, the youngest child of Richard Gurney and his second wife Rachel. The Gurney family and most of their connections were Quakers (members of the Society of Friends), and many were involved with banking. Richard had married as his first wife Agatha, only surviving child of the banker David Barclay of Youngsbury, who brought his daughters up in "what may be termed the best aristocratic Quaker life of the middle of the eighteenth century". Anna's eldest half-sibling was Hudson Gurney, twenty years her senior; as adults, they shared scholarly interests. Agatha bore another child, a daughter named after her, and died a few days later. It was felt by the Barclay grandparents that Richard was too much a typical country squire and too little a serious religious man, so they asked a sixteen-year-old niece to live with the widower and "instil some sterner Quaker spirit" into the children. Rachel was the second daughter of Osgood Hanbury of Holfield Grange, near Coggeshall, Essex. Within a year, Richard and Rachel married.

Anna had two full siblings, Richard ("Dick"), born 1783, and Elizabeth, born 1784. There was then a gap of over a decade before Anna's birth in 1795; she was the youngest child. The family seat was Keswick Hall, about three miles from Norwich, Norfolk.

Richard Gurney died 16 July 1811, when Anna was 15. When she was ten months old was attacked with a paralytic affliction which deprived her for ever of the use of her legs. She passed through her busy, active, and happy life without ever having been able to stand or move without mechanical aid.

At an early age she learnt Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Anglo-Saxon.