Harriet Gunn

• Name — Harriet Gunn • Birth Name — Harriet Turner • Born — 1806 • Died — September 1869 • Education — Artistic training by John Sell Cotman • Occupation — Lithographer; writer • Known for — Reproductions of medieval rood screen artwork • Spouse — John Gunn • Parents — Dawson Turner Mary Dawson Turner • Family — Engraver Hannah Sarah Brightwen (sister)

She was born Harriet Turner in 1806, the fourth daughter of polymath Dawson Turner and his wife Mary, née Palgrave, an artist and draughtswoman. Along with her sisters, Maria, Elizabeth, Mary Anne, Harriet, Hannah, and Eleanor, she received artistic training from engraver John Sell Cotman from 1812. Hannah Sarah Turner continued her artistic career after her marriage to banker Thomas Brightwen, producing lithographs as Hannah Sarah Brightwen.

• Illustration — Reproduction of Ranworth rood screen by Harriet Gunn, 1839 Around 1810, Dawson Turner began a project supplying extra illustrations for Francis Blomefield’s An Essay Towards A Topographical History of the County of Norfolk. Harriet and her mother and sisters contributed the bulk of the illustrations, supplying over 4000 drawings between them.

In 1820 the family produced a collaborative two-volume Account of a Tour in Normandy, drawing on letters and journals from their family tour in Normandy of 1818. Mary, Cotman, and Harriet and her sisters provided the illustrations.

On 27 April 1830, Harriet married John Gunn, rector of Irstead, Great Yarmouth, and amateur geologist and archaeologist. The paired toured Norfolk in pursuit of their interests, Harriet producing illustrations of architecture and ecclesiastical art. Her particular area of interest was rood screens, which preserved rare samples of medieval painting. With the help of her sisters Hannah and Mary Anne, she produced about 250 drawings of this underrepresented antiquarian feature. She exhibited her drawings at the annual congress of the Royal Archaeological Institute in 1847 and at a temporary museum at the Swan Hotel, Norwich.

The anonymous 1833 book Conversations on Church Polity, by A Lady is attributed to Harriet Gunn. In 1834, Dawson Turner edited and printed Letters Written During a Four Days’ Tour in Holland from Harriet's letters without her prior knowledge.

She died in September 1869.

The authorities additionally record the heading Harriet Turner. She was the child of Dawson Turner and Mary Dawson Turner. She married John Gunn.

Harriet Gunn is recorded as engraver and travel writer.