• Name: Stone, John Hurford
• Gender: Male
• Birth Date: 1763
• Death Date: 1818
• Occupation: printer
• Occupation: reformer

Godwin's early contacts with 'Stone' do seem plausibly associated with John Hurford Stone, a parishioner of Price and disciple of Priestley, a supporter of the French Revolution, and someone who offered to help the French ambassador negotiate with Britain to prevent war.

John Hurford Stone left for Paris in April 1792. He divorced his wife in France and had a long affair with Helen Maria Williams. He died in Paris in 1818. Alger in Englishmen in the French Revolution , suggests that Stone returned to England between February and May 1793, and was incarcerated in the Luxembourg for seventeen days in October 1793. Thereafter there is no suggestion that he returned to England, and the fact that his intercepted correspondence resulted in a prosecution for High Treason for his brother William, suggests that he was under surveilance and would have been arrested had he returned.

If the early entries to 'Stone' in the diary are to John Hurford, these would leave unexplained the entries for: 1792-06-15, although this has been coded for Stone on the grounds that when he left in April 1792 he probably did not believe he was leaving the country for good and it is likely he returned at some point to settle his affairs (and the context is right). Howver, it is possible that this (indeed, all the) Stone entry refers to William Stone, John Hurford's brother, who was tried for High Treason in January 1796, following the interception of correspondence (in 1793 and 1794) from John Hurford Stone.. However, it is surprising that Godwin seems to have no involvement with Stone around the time of the trial, and William was basically a Middlesex Coal merchant, rather than a literary figure, or someone associated with literary circles. Also, the treason case linked Stone to William Jackson, an Irish revolutionary, but there is no evidence connecting the one possible entry for William Jackson (9 February 1794, at Horne Tooke's - although the prosecution states that Jackson did not arrive in the country from Hamburg until 26 February 1794, so that identification is uncertain) with any Stone entry, which also casts doubt on the Stone being William. Alger suggests that William Stone left England to join his brother in France, but gives no date. It cannot be before March 1796 and there is an issue of whether he could have been granted a passport (Godwin was turned down during the Peace of Amiens), or whether he would have had to wait for tensions to subside, or could have slipped across via Germany. It is certainly possible that the entries for 1793, 1795 and 1797 are all to William Stone - just as it is possible that the earlier entries are also to him. But there is no supporting evidence for the attribution and we have left later entries uncoded.

There is also nothing to connect William Stone, or John Hurford Stone, with the John and William Stone who show an interest in Godwin's business in 1815. It is possible that some of the later Stone entries relate to the 'Stone surgeon' whom Godwin notes in 1814. The following have been left uncoded, despite the possible connection to William Stone. We have been unable to identify William's date of death or his career subsequent to his trial for treason (other than a court case immediately following concerning a bond (see The Times for 25 February 1796. # 1793-08-06 # 1795-01-31 # 1795-03-15 # 1797-06-06 # 1826-12-31

St Clair speculates that John and William Stone were the radicals John Hurford Stone (lover of Helen Maria Williams) and his brother William. We have ruled this out on the basis that John Hurford Stone was based in Paris, would have had difficulty in getting into England during the war, had been declared bankrupt in 1813, and would most likely have been liable to prosecution associated with his brother's trial for High Treason in 1796.

• DNB.
• St Clair, pp. 369-70.

This table lists the people this person is most frequently noted with in the diary.