Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 4.djvu/203

Rh habits he amassed a considerable fortune, and it is the manner in which he disposed of it that gives him a claim to be ranked among distinguished Scotsmen.

It is no improbable supposition that, in visiting the indigent patients of the humane physician under whom he commenced his professional studies, his youthful mind was impressed with the neglected and uncomfortable condition of the sick poor of his native town, and that when he found himself a man of wealth without family, the recollection of their situation recurred, and he formed the benevolent resolution of devoting the bulk of his fortune to the endowment of an hospital for their relief. He bequeathed for this purpose, in the first instance, twenty thousand pounds, besides about seven thousand available at the deaths of certain annuitants, and four thousand pounds more, liable to another contingency. From various causes, over which the trustees appointed by the deed of settlement had no control, considerable delay was occasioned in realizing the funds, and the hospital was not opened for the reception of patients until the beginning of 1819. It is an elegant building of two stories, in the Grecian style, after a design by James Gillespie, Esq. architect, and is erected on a rising ground to the west of Elgin. The funds are under the management of the member of parliament for the county, the sheriff depute, and the t\vo clergymen of the established church, ex officio, with three life directors named by the founder in the deed of settlement. A physician and surgeon appointed by the trustees at fixed salaries, attend daily in the hospital. For several years there was a prejudice against the institution among the class for whom it was founded, but this gradually wore off, and the public are now fully alive to, and freely avail themselves of the advantages it affords.

Mr Grey did not limit his beneficence to the founding and endowing of the hospital which will transmit his name to future generations; he bequeathed the annual interest of two thousand pounds to "the reputed old maids in the town of Elgin, daughters of respectable but decayed families." This charity is placed under the management of the two clergymen and the physicians of the town of Elgin, and it is suggested that, to be useful, it ought not to extend beyond eight or ten individuals. At the death of Mrs Grey, a farther sum of one thousand pounds -was to fall into this fund. The annual interest of seven thousand pounds was settled on the widow during her life, and it was directed that at her death four thousand pounds of the principal should be appropriated to the building of a new church in the town of Elgin, under the inspection of the two clergymen of the town, and that the interest of this sum should be applied to the use of the hospital until a church should be required. This is the contingency already referred to; and as a durable and handsome new church, of dimensions sufficient to accommodate the population of the town and parish, was erected by the heritors, at an expense exceeding eight thousand pounds, not many years ago, the funds of the hospital, in all probability, will for a long time have the advantage of the interest of this bequest. Grey was kind, and even liberal to his relatives during his life, and to his sister, the only member of his family who survived him, he left a handsome annuity, with legacies to all her family unprovided for at her death, On the whole he seems to have been a warm-hearted and benevolent man; but being disappointed in the happiness which he expected from his matrimonial connexion, his temper was soured, and a considerable degree of peevishness and distrust is evident throughout the whole of his deed of settlement. Whatever were his failings, his memory will be cherished by the thousands of poor for whom he has provided medical succour in the hour of distress; while the public at large cannot fail to remember with respect, a man who displayed so much benevolence and judgment in the disposal of the gifts of fortune.