He and his brother, John Joseph Gurney, were, at that time, the leading bankers in London.
Someone facetiously remarked that the Jews were the leading bankers in London until the Quakers crowded them out.
One of the most striking women I met in England at this time was Miss Elizabeth Pease.

I never saw a more strongly marked face.

Meeting her, forty years after, on the platform of a great meeting in the Town Hall at Glasgow, I knew her at once.

She is now Mrs.Nichol of Edinburgh, and, though on the shady side of eighty, is still active in all the reforms of the day.
It surprised us very much at first, when driving into the grounds of some of these beautiful Quaker homes, to have the great bell rung at the lodge, and to see the number of liveried servants on the porch and in the halls, and then to meet the host in plain garb, and to be welcomed in plain language, "How does thee do, Henry ?" "How does thee do Elizabeth ?" This sounded peculiarly sweet to me--a stranger in a strange land.

The wealthy English Quakers we visited at that time, taking them all in all, were the most charming people I had ever seen.