John Henry Gurney

John Henry Gurney

John Henry Gurney (born July 4, 1819 in Earlham Hall , Norfolk , England , † April 20, 1890 ) was an English banker and amateur ornithologist .

Gurney was the only son of Joseph John Gurney, a banker of Earlham Hall, Norfolk. At the age of ten he was sent to a private tutor in Leytonstone near Epping Forest , where he met ornithologist Henry Doubleday and started his first collection of natural history preparations. From there he moved to Friends' School in Tottenham , where he made the acquaintance of William Yarrell . At the age of 17, he joined his family's banking business in Norwich .

Gurney published a number of articles in The Zoologist journal on the Norfolk birds. He also built up a collection of birds of prey specimens. In 1864 he published the first part of the Descriptive Catalog about his collection and in 1872 he wrote The Birds of Damara Land based on the notes of his friend Karl Johan Andersson .

Between 1875 and 1882 he produced a number of records in the journal Ibis and the first volume of the Catalog of Birds in the British Museum . The work List of Diurnal Birds of Prey, with References and Annotations followed in 1884 .

Gurney spent the last 20 years of his life at his family home in Northrepps, near Cromer .

His son John Henry Gurney Jr. (1848–1922) was also an ornithologist and his great-great-grandson Henry Richard Gurney from Heggatt Hall continues the family tradition.

Gurney first described bird taxa such as the Madagascar falcon and the Anjouan sparrowhawk . Species such as giant scops owl ( Mimizuku gurneyi ), the Goldkehlpitta ( Pitta gurneyi ), the Gurney throttle ( Zoothera gurneyi ), the Molukken Adler ( Aquila gurneyi ) and the Natal Honigfresser ( Promerops gurneyi ) were named after him.

Literature on John Henry Gurney

• Mullens, William Herbert & Swann, Harry Kirke (1917 / Reprint 1986) A Bibliography of British Ornithology ISBN 0-854-86098-3 .