Gurwood may have started work in a merchant's office but on 30 March 1808 he enlisted as an Ensign in the 52nd (Oxfordshire) Regiment of Foot, a decision he said was strongly opposed by his mother. It may have been a non-purchase commission received on the recommendation of Lord Charles Somerset who wrote of Gurwood in February 1812 that he was 'a young officer in whose welfare I have always been much interested, and for whom I procured his first commission.'