Author: Gray, Robert
Biography:
GRAY, Robert (1787-1838: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born on 1 Apr. 1787 and baptised on 2 May at St. James, Piccadilly, London, the second son of Thomas Gray (1749-1820), jeweller and silversmith of Sackville Street, St. James, Westminster, and his wife Mary Musgrave (1745-1824), who had married in 1783. He was educated at Oriel College Oxford (matric. 1805, BA 1809, MA 1813) and ordained deacon (1813) and priest (1814). He was curate to his uncle, the Rev. Robert Gray (1762-1834) at St. Michael’s, Bishopwearmouth, near Sunderland (1814-27). He was also rector of Holy Trinity, Sunderland (1819-38), and perpetual curate of St. John’s Chapel, Sunderland. On his uncle’s elevation to Bishop of Bristol in 1827, he took over as rector at Bishopwearmouth. He married Mary Webster on 14 Feb. 1822 at St. Michael’s, Bishopwearmouth. They had four sons and three daughters. He was active in education. In 1822 he acquired the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel in Vine Street, Sunderland, for a school run on the national system, and in 1834 built an infant school near St. John’s Chapel. In the four-month cholera epidemic of 1831 he visited the sick and dying at considerable personal risk. When typhus struck Sunderland in November 1837, he again visited the sick but developed symptoms on 30 Jan. 1838. He died on 11 Feb. and was buried at Holy Trinity, Sunderland. In addition to the work listed here, he published several sermons, but was better known for his Remarks (1820) which was critical of the Unitarian New Testament and for Tracts on the Fundamental Doctrines controverted ion the Writings of the Modern Unitarians (1822). (ancestry.co.uk 28 Mar. 2023; findmypast.co.uk 28 Mar. 2023; CCEd 23 Mar. 2023; Yorkshire Gazette 23 Feb. 1822; GM Apr. 1838, 431-3; A Memorial Sketch of the late Rev. Robert Gray [1838]; Durham County Advertiser 23 Feb. 1822) AA