Short biography

Probably born in Keswick, near Norfolk, on 31 December 1795, Anna Gurney lost the use of her lower limbs as a young child, likely as the result of polio. Thereafter she got around either by the use of a wheelchair or in a cart contraption when outdoors. She developed a wide range of interests, notably antiquarianism, botany and geology, but she also had a talent for philology. Amongst the numerous modern and ancient languages she is known to have studied was Old English, producing the first, published translation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle when she was just 23 years old. Gurney was also an active abolitionist and campaigner for indigenous peoples’ rights in colonies. More locally her philanthropic work centred on childhood education and maritime safety.  

For most of her life she lived at Northrepps Cottage, Cromer on the north Norfolk coast, first with her widowed mother then after her death with her cousin and life partner Sarah Buxton (d.1839). The two women were known locally as the ‘Cottage Ladies’.  

The majority of Gurney’s fossil collecting focussed on mammal bones from the Pleistocene Cromer Forest Bed Formation exposed in the coastal cliffs of north Norfolk, employing the locals as her specimen collectors due to her lack of mobility. The mammoth bone in the print measured 4 foot 4 inches in length (c.1m 35cm) and was found in 1836 in a cliff near the village of Bacton.

She corresponded with the leading palaeontologists of the time who frequently cited her collection in their publications. The collection is now held by Norfolk Museums. 

Cromer and its environs from a geological map of Norfolk and Suffolk probably by Richard Cowling Taylor, [1815-1819]. (GSL Archive ref: LDGSL/1097). Cromer and North Repps where Anna lived is at the top. Bacton where the fossil bone was discovered is farther down the coast.