| AdminHistory | Anna Gurney (1795-1857), Old English scholar, born near Norwich, Norfolk, 31 December 1795. Her parents and most of her relatives were Quakers. Paralysed and lost the use of her legs at ten months old. Learnt Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Old English from an early age. Anonymously published a limited impression of "A Literal Translation of the Saxon Chronicle" in 1819.
From 1825 lived at Northrepps Cottage, near Cromer, where she bought at her own expense one of George William Manby's apparatuses for saving the lives of seamen wrecked on dangerous coasts, which fired a lifeline from a mortar to the shipwreck. Interested in the emancipation of slaves, and the education and material welfare of poor children. She made a journey to Rome, and then visited Athens and Argos, and contemplated a voyage to the Baltic. First woman member of the British Archaeological Association, in 1845, and published two papers in the "Archaeologia".
In her later life Gurney studied Danish, Swedish, and Russian literature, and was an important translator of the works of Daniel Solander, botanist.
Died 6 June 1857. |