Gurney Genealogy Library Updated 4 August 2026 by Allen Gurney

Francis Gurney (1581–1646/7)

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Merchant Taylor of London and probable father of John Gurney-1 of Massachusetts.

Born
13 September 1581, West Barsham Hall, Norfolk, England. Twin with Anthony; sixth son of Henry Gurnay, Esq., and Ellen Blennerhassett. 1
Died
9 January 1646/7, London, England. Buried at St Botolph Bishopsgate; Boyd's index misread the year as 1641, corrected March 2026. 2
Occupation / Education / Religion
Merchant Taylor. Bound apprentice in London on 14 May 1599 to Henry Tryme of the Merchant Taylors' Company at Near Ludgate for a seven-year term, transferred 3 February 1605 to William Smooth of Lothbury ahead of a documented six-month "journey into the north," and admitted to the freedom of the Company in June 1606. He later acted as a financial agent, described as "a sort of agent, or banker," for the Lestrange family of Hunstanton Hall from 1612 to 1636, and in 1616 took Francis Spelman, son of Sir Henry Spelman of Norfolk, as his own apprentice with a £100 bond. Church of England, with documented Puritan family connections. 4
Buried
9 January 1646/7, St Botolph Bishopsgate, London. 3
Marriage(s)
Margaret Rybett — married 23 September 1611 at St Martin at Palace, Norwich. She was a daughter of the Rivet family of Garveston, in mid-Norfolk; the parish register offers two candidates of the right age, baptized in 1586 and in 1577/8, and which of them she was is not settled. "Rybett" was the marriage clerk's spelling of the family's usual "Rivet." Margaret probably died c. 1616–1617; her burial has not been located. 5
Anne Browning — married c. late 1617, probably at Norwich though the record has not yet been located. Daughter of William Browning, merchant of Norwich and later Maldon, Essex. 6

Highlights

  • A first marriage at Norwich in 1611. The marriage of Francis Gurney and Margaret Rybett at St Martin at Palace, Norwich, on 23 September 1611 closes the long-unexplained gap between Francis's freedom in 1606 and his first London child in 1619. 7
  • The leading candidate for the father of John Gurney-1 of Massachusetts. Francis's first marriage produces a family of exactly the right generation to have supplied the emigrant, in the right corner of England, in a household with the right trade and a documented reason to leave. No record names a John among his children, and the East Dereham register's returns for the years such a child would have been baptised do not survive — so the identification is the best available rather than a proven one. 8
  • Financial collapse likely shaped the family's future. Francis liquidated all Norfolk and Suffolk lands in 1634. That sale, together with the failed King's Lynn enterprise, helps explain why an older son such as John would have seen little inheritance ahead in England. 9
  • Positioned inside strong Puritan-era networks. His Broad Street Ward parish sat beside Coleman Street Ward, one of the strongest Puritan zones in London, while his brother Edmund was an openly militant Puritan clergyman. 10

Children

Name Dates Mother Notes
John Gurney—Margaret RybettThe G13 emigrant, if the identification holds. No record of his baptism survives, and the East Dereham register's returns for 1611–1616 — the years in which a first child of the 1611 marriage would fall — are lost, with no second copy anywhere. 11
Edward Gurney27 May 1610Margaret Rybett?Baptized East Dereham. The firmest of the Norfolk baptisms — its year is fixed by a heading written into the parchment. The date falls sixteen months before the 1611 marriage, so his mother is not established. 12
Ann Gurneyc. 1612–16?Margaret RybettAn Ann Gurney married John Gilman at Hingham, Norfolk, on 1 October 1626. That marriage is a real record; what is unsupported is the link from this bride to Francis's household. 13
Agnes Gurneyburied 31 January 1616Margaret RybettKnown from her burial at East Dereham, which names her as Francis's daughter; no baptism survives. 14
Marye Gurney (first)buried c. 1615–16—An East Dereham burial of a Marye in Francis's household. The relationship word in the entry does not read "daughter," and she is more likely a niece. 15
Marye Gurney (second)25 May 1618Anne BrowningBaptized East Dereham (Entry D); probably first child with Anne. 16
Dorothy Gurney2 March 1619Anne BrowningFirst London child, baptized St Benet Fink. 17
Roger Gurney27 December 1621Anne BrowningBaptized St Benet Fink. Listed as eldest son in the 1633 visitation. 18
Anne Gurneyc. 1624Anne BrowningBaptized St Benet Fink. Died in infancy and was buried in 1625. 19
Francis Gurney13 December 1625Anne BrowningBaptized St Benet Fink; probably died young. 20
Anne Gurney (second)14 September 1628Anne BrowningBaptized St Benet Fink. 21
Margaret Gurney10 September 1630Anne BrowningBaptized St Benet Fink. 22
Deborah Gurney21 August 1632Anne BrowningBaptized St Benet Fink. 23
Elizabeth Gurney10 February 1634/5Anne BrowningBaptized St Benet Fink. 24
Mary Gurney19 December 1637Anne BrowningYoungest currently identified child baptized St Benet Fink. 25

Narrative

Francis Gurney was born into the Norfolk gentry but made his career in trade rather than landholding. As a younger son of Henry Gurnay, Esq., of West Barsham and Great Ellingham, he followed the standard path of apprenticeship and London company membership, entering the Merchant Taylors’ Company and building a commercial life tied to both Norwich and the City of London. Daniel Gurney’s nineteenth-century family history, reinforced by company and parish records, places him in the world of merchant capital, regional agency work, and urban parish networks rather than on a surviving landed estate.

His adult life helps explain how a cadet branch of an old Norfolk family could produce descendants who later crossed the Atlantic. Francis married first Margaret Rybett in 1611 — a daughter of the Rivet family of Garveston, in mid-Norfolk. The East Dereham baptisms then place the family back in Norfolk through the 1610s before the London baptisms at St Benet Fink begin in 1619. By the 1620s and 1630s, Francis appears to have been financially strained: a failed King’s Lynn textile venture, continuing debts, and the 1634 sale of all his Norfolk and Suffolk lands suggest that the family’s prospects had narrowed sharply.

That contraction is central to the argument about John Gurney-1 of Massachusetts, and it is the strongest part of it. A son trained in a trade, in a family that had just sold every acre it owned, had a textbook reason to try New England — and Francis’s household sat in the corridor that sent most of the emigrants. Francis is on that reasoning the strongest presently identified candidate for John’s father.

The identification stops short of proof, and the gap is specific. No surviving document names a John among Francis’s children, and the East Dereham register’s annual returns for 1611 to 1616 — the years in which a first child of the 1611 marriage would have been baptised — do not survive. The parish has no bound register for that period and no diocesan transcript before 1698, so those years cannot be recovered from any source. The question can never be settled from East Dereham, and it is not settled anywhere else.

Citations

  1. Daniel Gurney, Genealogical History of the House of Gournay, vol. II (London, 1848), 524. ↩
  2. FreeREG, St Botolph Bishopsgate burial entry for Francis Gurney; Boyd's published index misread the year, corrected March 2026 by review of the register context. ↩
  3. St Botolph Bishopsgate parish burial entry, 9 January 1646/7. ↩
  4. Merchant Taylors' Company binding-book record: bound 14 May 1599 to Henry Tryme of Near Ludgate; transferred 3 February 1605 to William Smooth of Lothbury with the Court note "Tr with a report of good service from his first master on the grounds that he is due to take a journey into the north and not likely to return until Michaelmas"; freed June 1606. Primary transcription: M. Scott (2024), Merchant Taylors' Company of London: Apprentices 1583-1800 [data collection], UK Data Service, SN 9263, https://datacatalogue.ukdataservice.ac.uk/studies/study/9263#details, COMB row 1829 / Freedoms row 25149 (vol. 3a, no. 611, p. 37); Daniel Gurney, Record, Supplement (1858), Note 181, quoting the freedom record as 16 June 1606 (the binding-book transcription gives 30 June 1606; the two-week discrepancy is unresolved). Master role: same dataset, COMB row 24423 / Freedoms row 54113 (vol. 7, no. 2160, p. 256), Francis Spelman son of Sir Henry Spelman, Knight, of Middleton, Norfolk, bound to Francis Gurney "Near the hall" with a £100 bond from the father, 22 April 1616. Hunstanton Hall / Lestrange context: Daniel Gurney, Record, Part III (1848), pp. 524 and 529–532. ↩
  5. Norfolk Record Office, St Martin at Palace, Norwich, marriage register (PD 12/1), 23 September 1611, Francis Gurney and Margaret Rybett. The bride was a Rivet of Garveston, Norfolk; the Garveston register yields two Margarets of the right age — Margaret, daughter of Francis Rivet, baptized 21 May 1586 (working weight ~55%), and Margarett, daughter of Robert Rivet, baptized 1 February 1577/8 (~40%), with a small residual for an unrecorded third — and the identification between them is unsettled. She is not of the armigerous Suffolk Ryvetts of Rishangles and Rattlesden, an earlier misattribution; the fuller analysis is in the project's research on the Rivett family of Garveston. Source ID: nro-pd-12-1. ↩
  6. Daniel Gurney, vol. II; Browning family identification from Norwich and Maldon records summarized in the Francis research file. ↩
  7. March 2026 East Dereham / Norwich register review establishing the St Martin at Palace marriage as the best-supported first marriage for Francis. ↩
  8. Norfolk Record Office, East Dereham, "Indented register bills, 1593-1641" (PD 86/41). The file is a set of loose annual certificates, and its returns for 25 March 1611 to 25 March 1616 do not survive. The Norfolk Record Office's own survey of the parish gives its registers as covering about 1549 to 1596, then nothing until 1679, with archdeacon's and bishop's transcripts only from 1698, so no second witness to those years has ever existed. The full weighing of the candidate parentage is in the John Gurney case file — a cross-reference, not a source. Source ID: nro-pd-86-41. ↩
  9. Daniel Gurney, vol. II; 1634 land-sale summary and failed King's Lynn textile venture references. ↩
  10. Broad Street Ward / Coleman Street Ward Puritan context and Edmund Gurney's Puritan ministry as summarized in the John Gurney Case File bibliography. ↩
  11. No baptism of a John to this household survives. A line in the East Dereham register (Norfolk Record Office, PD 86/41) indexed as "John the sonne of Nicholas Gorne" has been read as naming Francis; re-read across the full image run against recorded coordinates, the line adjudicated sits on a different membrane and belongs to an Enderby family, and the record the index describes is six years later and belongs to a Horne family. Source ID: nro-pd-86-41. ↩
  12. Norfolk Record Office, East Dereham register bills (PD 86/41), image 00721: Edward, son of ffrancis Gurney, baptised 27 May 1610. The year is fixed by the heading "East Dereham 1610" written into the parchment on the same membrane, which makes this the firmest-dated of the Norfolk entries. Source ID: nro-pd-86-41. ↩
  13. Hingham, Norfolk, parish register: marriage of Ann Gurney and John Gilman, worsted weaver, 1 October 1626. A search of Gurney-variant brides against Gilman-variant grooms in the Norfolk marriage index returns four results, none of them this pair and none before 1667, so nothing corroborates the link from this bride to Francis's household. Source IDs: fs-england-marriages-1538-1973; findmypast-norfolk-banns-marriages-index. ↩
  14. Norfolk Record Office, East Dereham register bills (PD 86/41): burial of "Agnes the daughter of ffrancis Gurny," 31 January 1616. FamilySearch's index transcribes the forename as "Susan," which the register does not support. Source ID: nro-pd-86-41. ↩
  15. Norfolk Record Office, East Dereham register bills (PD 86/41): burial of a Marye of Francis Gurney's household, late 1615 or January 1616. The relationship word is partly obscured by staining, and its opening letterform refutes "daughter" while being consistent with niece or nephew. Source ID: nro-pd-86-41. ↩
  16. Norfolk Record Office, East Dereham register bills (PD 86/41), image 00732: Marye, daughter of ffrancis Gurnoe, baptised 25 May 1618, inside the 1618-19 return. Source ID: nro-pd-86-41. ↩
  17. St Benet Fink baptism register, 2 March 1619, Dorothy daughter of Francis Gurney. ↩
  18. St Benet Fink baptism register, 27 December 1621, Roger son of Francis Gurney; Heralds' Visitation of London, 1633. ↩
  19. St Benet Fink baptism and burial sequence for Anne Gurney. ↩
  20. St Benet Fink baptism register, 13 December 1625, Francis son of Francis Gurney. ↩
  21. St Benet Fink baptism register, 14 September 1628, Anne daughter of Francis Gurney. ↩
  22. St Benet Fink baptism register, 10 September 1630, Margaret daughter of Francis Gurney. ↩
  23. St Benet Fink baptism register, 21 August 1632, Deborah daughter of Francis Gurney. ↩
  24. St Benet Fink baptism register, 10 February 1634/5, Elizabeth daughter of Francis Gurney. ↩
  25. St Benet Fink baptism register, 19 December 1637, Mary daughter of Francis Gurney. ↩