At the time of his marriage in 1773 to Catherine Bell, John Gurney, wool-stapler of Norwich, took his young wife, whose face has been preserved in a canvas by Gainsborough, to live in the old Court House in Magdalen Street, which had been the home of two generations of the Gurney family.

In 1786 John Gurney went with his continually growing family to live at Earlham Hall, some two or three miles out of Norwich on the Earlham Road.

Here that family of eleven children--one boy had died in infancy--grew up.

Not one but has an interesting history, which is recorded by Mr.Augustus Hare and other writers.[34] Elizabeth, the fourth daughter, married Joseph Fry, and as Elizabeth Fry attained to a world-wide fame as a prison reformer.

Hannah married Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton of Slave Trade Abolition; Richenda, the Rev.Francis Cunningham, who sent George Borrow upon his career; while Louisa married Samuel Hoare of Hampstead.