As a boy, Gurney was educated at
Winchester College. During
World War I, he joined the
British Army, and served with the
King's Royal Rifle Corps from 1917 to 1920. After a brief spell at
University College, Oxford, he joined the
British Colonial Service in 1921, and was posted to
Kenya as an assistant
district commissioner. In 1935, after fourteen years in Kenya, he was appointed
Assistant Colonial Secretary to
Jamaica. After a brief stint working at the Colonial Office in London, Gurney served as
Chief Secretary to the Conference of East Africa Governors from 1938 to 1944, and Colonial Secretary in the
Gold Coast from 1944 to 1946. In 1946, he was appointed Chief Secretary to
Palestine, serving until the end of British rule there in 1948. While serving in Palestine, Gurney was instrumental in crafting British policy during the
Jewish insurgency in Palestine. In the 1947
New Year Honours, he was promoted to Knight Commander () of the
Order of St Michael and St George, for his service in Palestine. He had previously been a Companion (CMG) in the same order. In 1949 he was made a Knight of the
Venerable Order of Saint John. On 1 October 1948, Gurney was appointed
High Commissioner to Malaya. Gurney assumed his post as the
Malayan Emergency was beginning, and over the next three years he became the chief architect of British policy in
Malaya. ==Assassination==