Gurney Genealogy Library Updated 4 August 2026 by Allen Gurney

These research notes are provided as-is and contain supplementary working research.

Identity — Candidate D: London Draper, Old Change

Candidate D is John Gurney, adult son and executor of Robert Gurney, citizen and draper of Old Change in the City of London, admitted to the Drapers’ Company by redemption on 11 February 1623/4.[1][2] He holds the best direct trade match of any candidate — his father was described as a tailor at Old Change — and an excellent age fit from the 1623/4 admission, which implies a birth about 1598–1603 against the colonial John’s deposed “aged 50 or thereabouts” in 1653.

He is nevertheless the weakest kind of candidate the field contains: a documented man with no household at all. No wife Mary, no children, and the shape’s predicted paternal grandfather named Richard is contradicted — his father was Robert. He stands at 4%, and what holds him that low is a chronological argument that is strong but not airtight: the same John Gurney appears still living in London, in the same St Augustine Watling Street parish, in 1662 — the year the colonial John of Braintree was dying at Boston.[3] That identification rests on continuity of an address across twenty-four years rather than on a record naming the same man twice, which is why the row is held rather than closed.

Robert of Old Change and the 1623/4 freedom

Robert Gurney died in late September 1625, leaving a will written 18 January 1621/2 and proved at the Archdeaconry Court of London on 23 September 1625 by the oath of his son and executor, John Gurney. Robert styled himself “Citizen and Draper of London” and gave his dwelling in Old Change; he left his widow Anne the two uppermost rooms of the house for her widowhood and gave John the shop, cellar, and hall beneath, plus the residue.[1] Robert had been a Drapers’ freeman since 16 December 1581, already styled “Tailor, Old Change” at his own admission, and remained an active Drapers’ master into the 1620s, training apprentices drawn from Buckinghamshire and Yorkshire and standing witness at other men’s freedoms.[4] John’s own admission to the Drapers’ came not by the patrimony his father’s long freedom would ordinarily have given him, but by redemption, on 11 February 1623/4, in the same event record that names Robert as his father.[2] On 3 November 1630 John himself bound an apprentice, Henry Smith of Kilton, Suffolk, for seven years — an active master’s role that almost certainly ran out of the Old Change shop he had inherited; Smith never surfaces as a freed Drapers’ man, and no Drapers’ turnover for any Gurney is recorded 1620–1670, so the trail runs cold without settling whether John himself stayed in the trade.[5]

Robert’s household had an earlier chapter that the Old Change story usually skips. A first John Gurny was baptized at St Augustine in 1595/6 and buried there in 1600; a daughter Marye was baptized 1597/8 and buried 1601; and a stillborn son was buried in 1601 — all a decade or more before Robert’s own 4 April 1611 marriage to Anne Morris of St Michael in the Querne, by licence, at St Magnus the Martyr.[6] Anne cannot, on this chronology, be assumed the mother of the John Gurney who later inherited Old Change; whichever wife bore him, she is not identified in the surviving record. Evidence

Continuing in London to 1662 — the chronological argument

Two independent London tax returns, twenty-four years apart, place a John Gurney at the same St Augustine Watling Street address. T. C. Dale’s 1931 transcription of the 1638 London rents return assesses John Gurney at £10 in MS. 67a, in the same manuscript section as Joseph Huntscott at £12 — the same Joseph Hunscott named an overseer of Robert’s 1625 will, still resident in the parish thirteen years after Robert’s death.[7] The Merry hearth-tax database then places a John Gurney “in St Austins precinct,” Farringdon Within ward, at one hearth, assessed “poore,” in 1662 (TNA E 179/252/27, rot. 21).[3] A Boyd’s Inhabitants of London card for “John Gurny of S Augustine” independently carries a partly-legible note reading “1661 poll tax [unclear] Old Change 1638 rent £10,” corroborating the same continuous St Augustine identity across both returns.[8]

The 1662 hearth-tax entry falls in the same calendar year the colonial John of Braintree was dying at Boston, about March 1662/3.[9] A draper’s household assessed too poor to pay hearth tax in London that year cannot also belong to the man dying in Massachusetts the same year. What the returns establish beyond doubt is that a John Gurney was at that address in both 1638 and 1662; what they do not establish by record is that he is Robert’s son, which is an identification by parish, precinct and surname across a twenty-four-year gap. It is a strong reading and it is not a document.[3] Evidence

No wife Mary, no matching children

No marriage of this John Gurney to a wife named Mary, and no baptisms of Sarah, Mary, Richard, John, or Peter to a John Gurney and Mary household, have turned up in any London parish register, Drapers’/Stationers’ record, or FamilySearch index for the 1620–1641 window. The nearest indexed John Gurney + Mary marriage in the window, at Eythorne, Kent, on 6 November 1632, belongs to a Kent couple who stayed in Kent.[10] Nor does a will or administration survive for an Anne Gurney widow matching Robert’s own widow in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury’s probate records for 1625–1670 — though that search covers only the prerogative court, not London’s own consistory, archdeaconry, or commissary courts, so the absence does not by itself prove Anne left no estate to probate.[11] Set beside the hearth-tax chronology, the missing wife and children give the argument a second, independent ground — and they place Candidate D squarely in the family of candidates who are documented men with no household at all. Evidence

Why redemption, not patrimony

John’s choice of the redemption route into the Drapers’ Company, when his father’s three-decade freedom should have entitled him to admission by patrimony, is an anomaly worth explaining rather than a stray procedural note. The best fit is that John served an apprenticeship in a different livery company first: a Stationers’ Company record binds a John Gurney apprentice to the stationer James Boler on 25 March 1613, with no later Stationers’ freedom recorded under Boler.[12] If this is the same man, an aborted or completed Stationers’ term would make the 1623/4 Drapers’ redemption the ordinary consequence rather than a puzzle, and the reading sits comfortably beside Robert’s own choice of the stationer Joseph Henscott as a 1625 will overseer — the same Hunscott/Henscott household still resident in St Augustine parish in 1638.[12] No father’s name survives on the 1613 binding to confirm the identification outright, so it stays a plausible explanation, not a proven one.

Two further same-surname Londoners surface in the same record sweeps and are kept aside as comparators only, not as Candidate D material. An earlier Richard Gurney/Gourney, haberdasher, was importing Baltic flax through the Port of London in 1567–68 and rose to alderman, sheriff (1589–90), and twice Master of the Haberdashers’ Company before his death in 1597; no record ties him to Robert’s household.[13] And a gentry John Gourney of Hanging Houghton, Northamptonshire, whose sons entered the Drapers’ and Clothworkers’ companies in the 1640s and 1650s, belongs to a distinct county and social class from the Old Change tradesman.[14] Evidence

Standing

Candidate D holds at 4%. The 1638 and 1662 London tax returns place a John Gurney at the same St Augustine Watling Street address across twenty-four years, still on record there after the colonial John had already died in Massachusetts, and the missing wife Mary and missing children give the same conclusion a second, independent ground. What keeps the row open rather than closed is that the tax returns are an address rather than a person: the 1638 and 1662 entries are linked by parish and precinct, not by a record naming Robert’s son twice.[15]

His burial has never been searched, and it cannot be searched the obvious way. A St Augustine Watling Street burial is not reachable by keyword in the parish-burial corpus, which does not carry that parish under a matchable place token; the search has to be routed through Boyd’s London Burials or the London Metropolitan Archives register itself. A burial for this John before 1641 would eliminate the colonial identification outright and a burial after 1662 would confirm his continuity — either way it is the single record that would move the row, and it has never been pulled.[16]

Three further London-record pulls remain open: the 1660–61 Free and Voluntary Present return that may underlie the Boyd’s card’s “1661 poll tax” note, the 1640 Harvey list of Principal Inhabitants as a midpoint between the 1638 and 1662 returns, and the underlying Arber Stationers’ Registers transcript that might name a father for the 1613 Boler apprentice and settle the redemption puzzle outright.[17]

  1. Robert Gurney, citizen and draper of London, will written 18 January 1621/2, proved 23 September 1625, Archdeaconry Court of London; user-supplied image 31787_A002570-00422.jpg; full transcription in sources/intake/john-gurney-2026May/john-gurney-candidate-d-working-packet-audited-v13.md §8. Source ID: acl-robert-gurney-will-1625. ↩︎ ↩︎

  2. ROLLCO Drapers’ Company event DREW5638, freedom by redemption, 11 February 1623/4, new freeman John Gurney, father of freeman Robert Gurney. Source ID: rollco-drapers-gurney-old-change-cluster. ↩︎ ↩︎

  3. Mark Merry, London Hearth Tax project database (2010), published with London Hearth Tax: City of London and Middlesex, 1666 and London Hearth Tax: Westminster 1664 (Centre for Metropolitan History, 2011) at British History Online: John Gurney, “In St Austins precinct,” Farringdon Within Ward, 1 hearth, assessed “poore,” 1662 (TNA E 179/252/27, rot. 21). Source ID: bho-london-hearth-tax-merry-2010. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  4. ROLLCO Drapers’ Company event corpus for Robert Gurney, 1581–1629 (DREW4826 freedom by servitude, 16 Dec 1581, “Tailor, Old Change,” master Robert Furnes; DRLL837, DRHT1669, DREW7982 further “Tailor, Old Change” master events 1604–1622; DREB6663 1611 freedom event; DREB1311 1629 posthumous master-name event). Source ID: rollco-drapers-gurney-old-change-cluster. ↩︎

  5. ROLLCO Drapers’ Company event DRLL2060, 3 November 1630 apprenticeship, master John Gurney, new apprentice Henry Smith, father Thomas Smith (deceased), yeoman of Kilton, Suffolk, seven-year bond; Henry Smith does not surface as a freed Drapers’ man 1635–1645, and no Drapers’ turnover for any Gurney is recorded 1620–1670. Source ID: rollco-drapers-gurney-old-change-cluster. ↩︎

  6. Parish register, St Augustine Watling Street, City of London, London Metropolitan Archives P69/AUG: John Gurny, son of Robert, baptized 18 February 1595/6, buried 4 February 1599/1600; Marye Gurny/Gorney, daughter of Robert, baptized 12 March 1597/8, buried 25 January 1600/1; unnamed stillborn son of Robert, buried 8 April 1601. Source ID: lma-st-augustine-watling-register-candidate-d-images. Parish register, St Magnus the Martyr, City of London, marriage register: Robert Gourney of St Augustine in Watling Street married Anne Morris of St Michael in the Querne, by licence, 4 April 1611. Source ID: lma-st-magnus-martyr-register-candidate-d-images. ↩︎

  7. T. C. Dale, “Inhabitants of London in 1638: St. Augustine,” in The Inhabitants of London in 1638 (Society of Genealogists, 1931), British History Online: John Gurney at £10 in MS. 67a; Joseph Huntscott at £12 in MS. p. 68. Source ID: bho-london-inhabitants-st-augustine-1638. ↩︎ ↩︎

  8. Boyd’s Inhabitants of London card GBOR/BIL/SOG59/0240, John Gurny of S Augustine: “1661 poll tax [unclear] Old Change 1638 rent £10.” Source ID: findmypast-boyds-inhabitants-london-candidate-d-gurney-cards. ↩︎

  9. The colonial John’s own estate inventory, taken 16 March 1663 (Suffolk Probate Files Case #338), is the primary record fixing his death at Braintree/Boston about March 1662/3 (cross-unit; see research/people/g13-john-gurney/topics/colonial/05-material-life.md, G13-RI-000033). ↩︎

  10. FamilySearch records search, surname Gurney, given name John, spouse given name Mary, marriage 1620–1640, place London/England; FamilySearch “England, Births and Christenings, 1538-1975” search for Sarah/Mary/Richard/John/Peter baptisms to a John Gurney + Mary household in London parishes and the Drapers’/Stationers’ apprenticeship-master records, 1620–1641: no match. The closest indexed John Gurney + Mary marriage in the window, at Eythorne, Kent, 6 November 1632, belongs to a Kent couple who stayed in Kent. Source ID: fs-england-births-christenings. ↩︎

  11. Ancestry.com, England & Wales, Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills, 1384-1858 (collection 5111): no will or administration for an Anne Gurney widow of Old Change/St Augustine Watling Street, 1625–1670. The search covers only the prerogative court; London’s consistory, archdeaconry, and commissary court probate indexes for Anne Gurney have not yet been searched. (The frozen candidate working file hedged this citation to an unregistered placeholder id, “existing source if applicable”; it is now registered properly.) Source ID: ancestry-pcc-wills-1384-1858. ↩︎

  12. ROLLCO Stationers’ Company event STMM8981, 25 March 1613, apprenticeship, master James Boler, new apprentice John Gurney, reference ST/1:0812; no father recorded; no subsequent Stationers’ freedom under Boler. Source ID: rollco-stationers-gurney-1613-1626. Joseph Hunscott/Henscott, Robert’s 1625 will overseer, was himself a Stationers’ Company apprenticeship master 1612–1646, father of a Stationer freed 1641, and author of a 1646 royalist petition (Wing H3728). Source IDs: rollco-stationers-hunscott-cluster, arber-stationers-bsoc-petition-1646-hunscott. ↩︎ ↩︎

  13. Brian Dietz, ed., The Port and Trade of Early Elizabethan London: Documents, London Record Society, vol. 8 (London, 1972), British History Online, “Gurney, Richard, haberdasher” index entry and selected 1567–68 London port-book entries. Source ID: bho-port-trade-early-elizabethan-london-richard-gurney-1567-8. Alfred P. Beaven, “Chronological list of aldermen: 1501-1600,” in The Aldermen of the City of London Temp. Henry III - 1912 (London, 1908), British History Online: Richard Gourney, Haberdasher, alderman 1589, sheriff 1589–90, died 1597. Source ID: bho-beaven-aldermen-richard-gourney-1589-1597. ↩︎

  14. ROLLCO Drapers’ Company event DREW4827, 1654 apprenticeship, new apprentice Charles Gourney, father John Gourney “gen, Hanging Holton N’hants”; parallel Clothworkers’ event 1647 with the same residence reading. Source ID: rollco-drapers-gurney-old-change-cluster. ↩︎

  15. Cross-reference, not a source. The evidence for the standing is the 1638 and 1662 London tax returns cited at [7] and [3]. The case file’s own presentation of Candidate D is at §8.4, “Candidate D — London Drapers’ / Old Change”; the project’s depth-of-detail working file is research/topics/john-gurney-candidate-london-draper.md. The attribute matrix scoring him is 38-the-shape-and-the-two-families.md. ↩︎

  16. FindMyPast parish-burial corpus, 29 July 2026: a keyword search for St Augustine Watling Street returns nothing, because the set does not carry the parish under a matchable place token — the same literal-token failure mode documented at 39-child-inventory-method.md check C2a. The reachable routes are Boyd’s London Burials and the London Metropolitan Archives register P69/AUG itself. Source IDs: findmypast-uk-parish-baptisms; lma-st-augustine-watling-register-candidate-d-images. ↩︎

  17. The National Archives, Kew, E179 series, 1660–61 Free and Voluntary Present, City of London assessments; specific roll for Castle Baynard ward / St Augustine not yet retrieved at image level. Source ID: tna-e179-1661-london-poll-tax-deferred. W. J. Harvey, ed., List of the Principal Inhabitants of the City of London, 1640 (London, 1886; reprinted 2011); full text not yet retrieved online. Source ID: bho-1640-principal-inhabitants-london-deferred. Edward Arber, ed., A Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers of London, 1554-1640 (London, 1875–1894), vol. 3 raw entry for the 25 March 1613 Boler/Gurney binding; not yet checked for a father name. Source ID: arber-stationers-registers-1554-1640-deferred. ↩︎