Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/12



By his first marriage Gray had issue one son, Patrick, who was killed, between 1630 and 1639, at the siege of a town in France, and one daughter, Anna, who was styled Mistress of Gray. On his visit to Scotland in 1639 Gray married his daughter to William Gray, the son and heir of his kinsman, Sir William Gray of Pittendrum, and, resigning his honours and estates into the king's hands, obtained a new patent in favour of himself in life-rent and the heirs male of his daughter and her husband in fee; this arrangement was ratified by parliament in 1641. Gray, however, married again, his third wife being Catherine Cadell, and by her he had a daughter, Frances, who in 1661 was seized in London, on her way to France, at the instigation of Chancellor Glencairn, and sent to Newgate until she found bail, which she pleaded she could not do, being a stranger and destitute of friends (State Papers, Dom. 1661). She afterwards married Captain Mackenzie, son of Murdoch Mackenzie, bishop of Moray and Orkney. Gray was succeeded by his grandson, Patrick, the son of his daughter Anna.

[Acts of Parl. Scotl. vols. vi. vii.; Earl of Stirling's Reg. of Royal Letters, pp. 169, 253, 675; State Papers, Dom. 1628–61.]  GRAY, ANDREW (d. 1728), divine, of Scottish family, was the first minister of a congregation of protestant dissenters at Tintwistle in the parish of Mottram-in-Longdendale, Cheshire. He subsequently joined the church of England, and was appointed vicar of Mottram, and while there published a volume entitled ‘A Door opening into Everlasting Life,’ 1706, which was reprinted in 1810, with an introductory ‘recommendation’ by the Rev. M. Olerenshaw. Another book, ‘The Mystery of Grace,’ is also ascribed to him. He left Mottram about 1716, and died at Anglezark, near Rivington, Lancashire. His will was proved by his widow, Dorothy Gray, on 19 Feb. 1727–8, so that he died shortly before that date.

[Earwaker's East Cheshire, ii. 131; Nonconformity in Cheshire, ed. Urwick, 1864, p. 355.]  GRAY, ANDREW (1805–1861), Scottish presbyterian divine, born at Aberdeen, 2 Nov. 1805, went first to a school kept by Gilbert, father of Forbes Falconer [q. v.], and afterwards to Marischal College, where he graduated A.M. in 1824, and passed through the theological course (1824–8). He was licensed to preach by the Aberdeen presbytery 25 June 1829, and became minister of a chapel-of-ease at Woodside, near Aberdeen, 1 Sept. 1831. Gray was from the first an orthodox evangelical, a vigorous supporter of reform in the church of Scotland, and a pronounced enemy to all that savoured of Romish doctrine. He publicly defended the Anti-Patronage Society as early as 1825, and agitated for the Chapels Act, by which ministers of chapels-of-ease became members of presbyteries. In 1834 he was admitted under this act a member of the Aberdeen presbytery. On 14 July 1836 he was appointed minister of the West Church, Perth, where he remained till his death. Gray was a very energetic leader in the controversies which resulted in the disruption of 1843 and the foundation of the Free church. A pamphlet by him, ‘The present Conflict between Civil and Ecclesiastical Courts examined,’ Edinburgh, 1839, 8vo, had a wide circulation and great influence. On his secession from the church of Scotland nearly all his congregation followed him. His new church was opened 28 Oct. 1843.

In 1845 he drew up at the request of the Free church leaders ‘A Catechism of the Principles of the Free Church’ (1845 and 1848), which involved him in a controversy with the Duke of Argyll. In December 1841 Gray was commissioned to visit Switzerland to express the sympathy of the Free church with the suspended ministers of the Canton de Vaud; he extended his tour to Constantinople. In 1855 he was appointed convener of the Glasgow evangelisation committee, and he was always active in home missions and in spreading education. Failing health made another long continental tour necessary in 1859. He died at Perth 10 March 1861. He married, 23 July 1834, Barbara, daughter of Alexander Cooper. Robert Smith Candlish [q. v.] collected nineteen of Gray's sermons, with memoir and portrait, under the title ‘Gospel Contrasts and Parallels,’ Edinburgh, 1862.

[Dr. Candlish's Memoir, 1862; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Hew Scott's Fasti, pt. iv. p. 618.]  GRAY, CHARLES (1782–1851), captain in the marines and song-writer, was born at Anstruther, Fifeshire, on 10 March 1782. His education and early training fitted him for the sea, and in 1805, through the influence of a maternal uncle, he received a commission in the Woolwich division of the royal marines. He was thirty-six years in the service, and retired on a captain's full pay in 1841. He spent the remainder of his days in Edinburgh, devoting himself zealously to the production and the criticism of Scottish song. He had published in 1811 a volume entitled ‘Poems and Songs,’ which went into a second edition at the end of three years.