Family and business papers of and concerning the Backhouse family of Darlington, Co. Durham, and the Gurney family of Lakenham Grove, Norwich, Norfolk, prominent Quaker bankers, their descendants and related Quaker families.
The collection relates primarily to the family of Jonathan Backhouse junior (1779-1842), Quaker banker of Darlington, Co. Durham, his wife Hannah Chapman Backhouse (1787-1850), daughter of Joseph Gurney (1757-1830), Quaker banker of Lakenham Grove, Norwich, Norfolk, and their close relatives and descendants, including their son, Edmund Backhouse, M.P. (1824-1906), and grandson, Sir Jonathan Edmund Backhouse, 1st Bart, (1849-1918).
Other English Quaker families united to the Backhouses by ties of kinship and business interests are also represented in the collection: many items concern the Norfolk Gurneys, including Joseph John Gurney (1788-1847), the philanthropist, and his sister Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845), and their Chapman, Barclay, Birckbeck and Hoare connections; other documents relate to the Fox family of Cornwall (Edmund Backhouse, M.P., married Juliet Fox, daughter of Charles Fox, in 1848) and their ancestors and relations, the Yorkshire Hornors and Hirds, the Hustlers of Yorkshire and Lancashire, the Fells of Lancashire and the Fullers of Norfolk.
From the guide to the Backhouse Papers, Chiefly 18th - early 20th centuries but including deeds of 1352 and 1657, (Durham University Library, Archives and Special Collections)
