A Remarkable Clerical Career

Many Victorian clerics had fairly routine lives but Archer Gurney’s was far from pedestrian. After his childhood in Cornwall the family spent ten years on the continent. Back in England Archer trained as a barrister, stood for parliament and was ordained. He worked amongst the poor in Soho, spent twelve years as a chaplain in Paris and then held a series of curacies in England and Wales.

Throughout his life Archer wrote prolifically and the Memoir includes many extracts from his published and unpublished poetry and dramas. He also corresponded or had encounters with prominent literary figures of the day including Wordsworth, Tennyson, the Austrian poet Grillparzer, Matthew Arnold, Charles Kingsley and Charles Dickens.

The detailed and unfinished Memoir of his life between 1820 and 1855, written by his brother Augustus, is included in full.