Earlham Hall is a country house in Norfolk, England. It is located just to the west of the city of Norwich, [1] on Earlham Road, on the outskirts of the village of Earlham. For generations it was the home of the Gurney family. The Gurneys were known as bankers and social activists; prison reformer Elizabeth Fry grew up at Earlham Hall. When the University of East Anglia was founded in 1963, the building became its administrative centre, and it now serves as the law school.
Earlham Hall was built in 1642 by Robert Houghton. [1] By the eighteenth century it was occupied by Nockold Tompson, a brewer who was Mayor of Norwich in 1759–60. When he farmed at Earlham Hall his crop-yield experiments were praised by Arthur Young in his Farmer's Calendar of 1771. [2] Also in the eighteenth century it was in the ownership of the Bacon family; Edward Bacon M.P. built a "handsome, long, and lofty" dining room. [3] He died in 1786 and ownership descended to a Mr Bacon Frank of Campsall in Yorkshire. At this juncture the house was rented to the Gurney family, an arrangement which persisted for well over a century, "perhaps one of the oldest tenancies known for a mansion of the size, though very frequent In the case of farmhouses". [3]
The Gurneys were influential and wealthy Quakers who established the bank bearing their name in 1770. (The family became sufficiently well known to be mentioned in Gilbert and Sullivan's 1875 comic opera Trial by Jury : a character describes his accumulation of wealth until "at length I became as rich as the Gurneys". [4] Gurney's Bank merged into Barclays in 1896.)
Earlham Hall was the home of John Gurney (1749-1809) and his wife Catherine Bell (1755–1794). They had 13 children, including the bankers Samuel Gurney and Daniel Gurney, the social reformers Elizabeth Fry and Joseph John Gurney, and Louisa Hoare, the writer on education. Another sister, Hannah, married Sir Fowell Buxton, MP, brewer, and abolitionist. [5]
The Gurneys welcomed visitors and friends at Earlham Hall including Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Amelia Opie - an intimate friend of the family - and Susannah Taylor, all three being Bluestockings. [6] [7] [8] [9]
George Borrow (1803-1881), author and traveller, used as a boy to fish the River Yare near Earlham Hall. On one occasion he was caught by Joseph John Gurney, who later invited the boy to his home to see his books. [1] In his autobiographical novel Lavengro Borrow recalls Earlham Hall;
On the right side is a green level, a smiling meadow, grass of the richest decks the side of the slope; mighty trees also adorn it, giant elms, the nearest of which, when the sun is nigh its meridian, fling a broad shadow upon the face of the ancient brick of an old English Hall. It has a stately look, that old building, indistinctly seen, as it is, among the umbrageous trees. [1]
Percy Lubbock (1879-1965), art critic and biographer, was associated with Earlham Hall. He was the son of the merchant banker Frederic Lubbock and his wife Catherine, daughter of John Gurney (1809–1856). [1] Lubbock spent his childhood summer holidays at his mother's family home; his memoir Earlham (1922) won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.
The Hall was used as council and nurses accommodation before the war, and provided maternity beds when bombs smashed Norwich's maternity home in June 1942. It also housed a school while the council built new accommodation in West Earlham. [10]
In October 1963, Earlham Hall and its gardens became the home of the newly opened University of East Anglia. The Vice-Chancellor and administration were based in Earlham Hall. [11] It later housed the Norwich Law School. Following major refurbishment and restoration (at a cost of around £8 million [12] ), the Law School returned to Earlham Hall in March 2014 after four years being located in the Blackdale building.
In May 2015, the grounds of Earlham Hall were used as a backstage area for artists performing at Radio 1's Big Weekend at Earlham Park. The University of East Anglia communications team used part of the Hall, and Taylor Swift, among others, used another part as a dressing room before performing. [13]
Anna Laetitia Barbauld was a prominent English poet, essayist, literary critic, editor, and author of children's literature. A prominent member of the Blue Stockings Society and a "woman of letters" who published in multiple genres, Barbauld had a successful writing career that spanned more than half a century.
Elizabeth Fry, sometimes referred to as Betsy Fry, was an English prison reformer, social reformer, philanthropist and Quaker. Fry was a major driving force behind new legislation to improve the treatment of prisoners, especially female inmates, and as such has been called the "Angel of Prisons". She was instrumental in the 1823 Gaols Act which mandated sex-segregation of prisons and female warders for female inmates to protect them from sexual exploitation. Fry kept extensive diaries, in which the need to protect female prisoners from rape and sexual exploitation is explicit.
The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a 320-acre (130-hectare) campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and twenty-six schools of study. The university is a leading member of Norwich Research Park which has one of Europe's largest concentrations of researchers in the fields of agriculture, genomics, health and the environment. It is one of five BBSRC funded research campuses with thirty businesses, four independent research institutes and a teaching hospital on site.
Amelia Opie was an English author who published numerous novels in the Romantic period up to 1828. A Whig supporter and Bluestocking, Opie was also a leading abolitionist in Norwich, England. Hers was the first of 187,000 names presented to the British Parliament on a petition from women to stop slavery.
Prince William Frederick, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, was a great-grandson of King George II of Great Britain and the nephew and son-in-law of King George III. He was the grandson of both Frederick, Prince of Wales, and Edward Walpole. Prince William married Princess Mary, the fourth daughter of George III.
Joseph John Gurney was a banker in Norwich, England and a member of the Gurney family of that city. He became an evangelical minister of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), whose views and actions led, ultimately, to a schism among American Quakers.
Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, 1st Baronet Buxton of Belfield and Runton was an English Member of Parliament, brewer, abolitionist and social reformer. He married Hannah Gurney, whose sister became Elizabeth Fry, and became a great friend of her father Joseph Gurney and the extended Gurney family.
Percy Lubbock, CBE was an English man of letters, known as an essayist, critic and biographer. His controversial book The Craft of Fiction gained influence in the 1920s.
Anna Gurney (1795–1857) was an English scholar, philanthropist, geologist and a member of the Gurney family of Norfolk.
Samuel Gurney was an English banker and philanthropist from the Gurney family of Norwich. He should not be confused with his second son, Samuel (1816–1882), also described as banker and philanthropist, and a Member of Parliament.
John Taylor was an entrepreneur, poet and composer of both secular (political) songs and hymns from Norwich, England.
Samuel Hoare Jr was a wealthy British Quaker banker and abolitionist born in Stoke Newington, then to the north of London in the county of Middlesex. From 1790, he lived at Heath House on Hampstead Heath. He was one of the twelve founding members of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.
The Martineau family is an intellectual, business and political dynasty associated first with Norwich and later also London and Birmingham, England. Many members of the family have been knighted. Many family members were prominent Unitarians; a room in London's Essex Hall, the headquarters building of the British Unitarians, was named after them. Martineau Place in Birmingham's central business district was named in their honour.
Daniel Gurney (1791–1880), was an English banker and antiquary from the Gurney family of Norwich.
Louisa Gurney Hoare was an English diarist and writer on education, and a member of the Gurney family. She was concerned particularly with standards of education.
The Gurneys were an influential family of English Quakers, who had a major part in the development of Norwich, England. They established Gurney's Bank in 1770, which merged into Barclays Bank in 1896. A number of family members were abolitionists. Members of the family still live in the United Kingdom.
John Gurney was an English banker and member of the Gurney family of Norwich. Besides his role as a partner in Gurney's bank he is notable as the father of the social reformers Elizabeth Fry and Joseph John Gurney, the writer Louisa Hoare and the banker Samuel Gurney.
John Gurney (1845–1887), a member of the renowned Gurney banking family of Norfolk, was mayor of Norwich.
Susannah Taylor or Susannah Cook - also known by the sobriquet Madame Roland or Dame Roland - was a British socialite and correspondent.
Priscilla Buxton was a British slavery abolitionist. She was co-secretary of the London Female Anti-Slavery Society. In 1833 a petition of 187,000 women's signatures were presented to parliament to end slavery. The first two names were Amelia Opie and Priscilla Buxton.
...Earlham Hall, the birthplace of the Gurneys... where we sometimes hear of Mrs Taylor visiting Earlham Hall on a summer afternoon...Mrs Taylor speaks of visiting at Holkham and hopes they [her and her husband and other friends] may enjoy themselves...
1786: [Opie] writes Adelaide, a 5-act play; wide social circle includes the radical Mrs. John Taylor, as well as literary figures Dr. Aiken and his sister, Anna Letitia Barbauld, and the Quaker Gurney family, including John Joseph, who was to become an important figure later in the 19th century, and Elizabeth, who after her marriage to Joseph Fry became a leading advocate for prison reform; meets Sarah Siddons, the actress, in Norwich (September)