William Gurley (March 16, 1821 – January 11, 1887) co-founded what is now known as

Gurley Precision Instruments Gurley Precision Instruments, or GPI, is an ISO-9001 certified U.S. manufacturing company based in Troy, New York. History Gurley Enterprise was established by William Gurley and Lewis E. Gurley in 1845, brothers who were both alumni of Renssela ...

with his brother, and served as vice president and, from 1886 to 1887, acting president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Gurley was born in

Troy, New York Troy is a city in the U.S. state of New York and the county seat of Rensselaer County. The city is located on the western edge of Rensselaer County and on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Troy has close ties to the nearby cities of Albany ...

, March 16, 1821, the son of Ephraim and Clarissa (Sharp) Gurley. He received the best education afforded by the schools in this vicinity, and choosing the profession of a civil engineer, attended the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, from which he graduated in 1839. He worked as a surveyor for a few years and then joined the firm of Oscar Hanks, who was a well-known maker of surveying instruments and church bells in Troy. He worked for Hanks for five years. In 1845, Gurley established his own scientific instrument manufacturing business in partnership with James Phelps. Phelps had had his own shop since 1838. They called the business Phelps & Gurley. In 1844, William Gurley's brother Lewis Ephraim Gurley joined Phelps' shop as an apprentice and he then attended

Union College Union College is a private liberal arts college in Schenectady, New York. Founded in 1795, it was the first institution of higher learning chartered by the New York State Board of Regents, and second in the state of New York, after Columbia Co ...

from 1847 to 1851. Lewis Gurley rejoined the firm in 1851, at which point it was renamed Phelps and Gurleys. In 1852, Phelps sold out his interest and the business was renamed W.& L.E. Gurley. The firm still exists today as

. William Gurley was involved in several local organizations. For many years he was connected with the

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams (philanthropist), Georg ...

, and in 1851 was elected its president. He served as

alderman An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members t ...

from 1860 to 1864, and as fire commissioner he helped to improve fire prevention systems in major cities. He was a member of the New York State Assembly (Rensselaer Co., 1st D.) in

1867 Events January–March * January 1 – The Covington–Cincinnati Suspension Bridge opens between Cincinnati, Ohio, and Covington, Kentucky, in the United States, becoming the longest single-span bridge in the world. It was renamed a ...

. In 1868, he was appointed by the Secretary of the Treasury to serve on a commission with Prof. Joseph Henry and other scientific experts to examine the best meter devised for determining the products of distillation, to be subsequently adopted by the department. Gurley was a long-time trustee of Rensselaer, having been elected to that position in 1855. He was secretary of the institution from 1861 to 1872, vice-president from 1872 to 1887 and acting president from 1886 to 1887. He died on January 11, 1887, in Troy. The W. & L. E. Gurley Building in Troy was designated a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

in 1983.

External links

*Benjamin Franklin Greene, ''Biographical Record of the Officers and Graduates of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1824-1886.'' D.H. Jones & Co.: Troy, NY (1855
Presidents of RPI: William Gurley

References

Presidents of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 1821 births 1887 deaths American scientific instrument makers Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute alumni Members of the New York State Assembly 19th-century American politicians {{US-academic-administrator-1820s-stub