Pickering College - Voyageur Yearbook (Newmarket, Ontario Canada)

Page 9 text:

Dedication In the one hundred and twenty-fifth year since our founding in 1842 it is with pride and gratitude that we dedicate this issue of the Voyageur to Joseph John Gurney who first encouraged Friends in Upper Canada to establish a boarding school. A brother of Elizabeth Fry, Joseph John Gurney was an outstand- ing and influential minister of the Society of Friends in England. The son of a wealthy Quaker banker, educated at Oxford, he became a foremost evangelical leader, an eloquent speaker and a forceful writer in Quaker affairs. He shared with his sister Elizabeth Fry the belief in the dire need for prison reform, he spoke and worked against the evils of slavery and he always showed a deep interest in education. Joseph John Gurney paid two visits to Canada in 1838 and 1839. During the Canada Half-Year Meeting held at Yonge Street in 1839, he strongly advised the founding of a boarding school for the education of Friends' children in Canada and made a very handsome gift of money to set the project in motion. Thanks to him the school was in full operation in the spring of 1842 near Picton in Prince Edward County. Those of us at Pickering College in 1967 owe much to the vision and devotion of Joseph John Gurney and those early Friends of over one hundred and twenty-five years ago. Five'