This line in a newspaper article in the Norwich Mercury 200 years ago this week doesn’t really suggest the significance of this marriage.
Joseph Pease (1799-1892) was a railway pioneer and one of the supporters of the Stockport and Darlington Railway Company. He also later became the first Quaker MP and was one of the advocates for increased animal rights. He was also the son of Edward Pease, who is known as the ‘Father of the Railways’ which seems a nice title to have.
Emma Gurney (1800-1860) was the youngest daughter of Joseph Gurney, a banker from the Gurney family whose operations were subsumed into Barclays Bank later in the nineteenth century.
This is a statue commemorating Joseph Pease, a photo I took in Darlington in 2022 where I managed to explore a fair amount of railway history.
This was a proper political power couple, their families bringing together wealth, railway experience and connections. The marriage would have taken place at the Friends Meeting House on Upper Goat Lane in the city. The current building was opened in 1826, on the site of the former meeting house, so I’m assuming that this might have been one of the first marriages there. Although this assumes that the Norwich Mercury was right, as some other sources are saying that they married in Darlington, which adds confusion to the mix.