Author: Gray, George
Biography:
GRAY, George (1713-46: ancestry.co.uk)
Gray is sometimes given as Grey. A Turkish Tale is attributed to George Gray on the basis of a ms note in the BL copy identifying the author as George Gray of Southwick [Durham], father-in-law of the 1st Earl Gray. Although the attribution has been confidently accepted in numerous sources, it is made problematic by an inscription in the same copy that reads “To Mrs. Durham from the Author.” The book was published in 1770; George Gray of Southwick died in 1746 and therefore could not have written the inscription. His father, also George Gray, was born in 1680 and died in 1772; he seems unlikely to have been the author. However, in the absence of any other candidate this headnote gives information about George Gray, jun. He was born on 4 Aug. 1713 at Southwick to George Gray, a counsellor at law in Southwick and Newcastle, and his wife Alice Clavering. On 15 June 1740 at Newcastle he married Elizabeth Ogle (b 1714). Of their two children, Elizabeth (b 1741) married Charles Grey in 1762; he was a soldier who became the 1st Earl Grey. George Gray died in Mar. 1746/7; a notice in the Newcastle Courant described him as “a young gentleman of an admirable sweet Temper, a good Understanding, [who] had attained great skill in Musick.” (ancestry.co.uk 23 Oct. 2024; John Nichols, Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century [1822]; Newcastle Courant 22-29 Mar. 1746) SR