 Two more papers on decapods appeared in 1903, and 1904 saw his first paper on freshwater copepods.Realising the need for a specialist field station for freshwater biology to match the marine biological stations at Plymouth (Marine Biological Association) and Naples (""), Robert and his brother Eustace (later Lord Mayor of Norwich) set up Great Britain's first freshwater laboratory at Sutton Broad.This station did not survive the First World War, but Gurney was later among the founders of the Freshwater Biological Association, which set up the field station at Far Sawrey on Windermere.