For several years Mr. Gurney resided at Hanacott Manor, near Launceston, but he had also a house at Reeds, in Poughill by Bude, and the castle at the latter place, which is usually let. He was knighted in 1863--a tardy acknowledgment of his great services and extraordinary ability. The honour came too late to really advantage him. That same year he was stricken with paralysis, and therefore could do nothing in the way of scientific research and invention. He was attended till his death by his only child, a daughter, Miss Anna D. Gurney. He expired at Reeds on the 28th February, 1875, and was buried at Launcells in the graveyard just under the south wall of the nave.
Like Henry Trengrouse, so with Sir Goldsworthy Gurney--a man of genius and perseverance, and one who benefited mankind, received no adequate recognition in his lifetime. May posterity do for him, as for Trengrouse, what his contemporaries denied him. Mr. Smiles vainly endeavoured to refuse to credit him with the invention of the steam-blast; but the writer of his life in the _Dictionary of National Biography_ afforded him tardy justice. "One soweth and another reapeth" is true of all inventors with few exceptions. How much do we owe to Sir Goldsworthy! He was the pioneer of locomotion by motors on our roads, the salvation of many lives by the ventilation of coal-mines; he invented the system of heating mansions by hot water, the flash-light for lighthouses, the steam-blast revolutionizing locomotion by steam; he showed that houses could be built on concrete foundations; he discovered the limelight, the oxyhydrogen blow-pipe: and he was repaid with a barren knighthood when about to be struck down by paralysis.
For his bounty, There was no winter in't; an autumn 'twas, That grew the more by reaping. _Antony and Cleopatra_, v. 2.
[13] Smiles (S.), _Lives of the Engineers_, Vol. III, p. 100. London, 1862.
The family of Jane, descended from the ancient family of Janes of Worcestershire, was settled in Cornwall at an early date. It bore as its arms, arg. a lion rampant az. between 3 escallops gules. It was settled in S. Winnow early in the sixteenth century, and at the beginning of the following century was at Lanhydrock and at Liskeard, at which latter place Thomas Jane was mayor in 1621. His son Joseph Jane was M.P. for Liskeard in 1625 and 1640, and was mayor in 1631, 1635, and 1636. He married Loveday, daughter of William Kekewich, in 1633. He was a whole-hearted Royalist, and when the King was at Oxford, in 1643, he attended him there. In the following year he was one of the Royal Commissioners in Cornwall, and when Charles I came to Cornwall, in 1644, he entertained him in August in his house at Liskeard.