Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 47.djvu/344

 committee reported on this institution, and on the claims of Adams to public money, and in the end parliament voted him the sum of 4,000l., Lord Palmerston supporting him with great warmth.

Adams and his relatives were largely interested in the Anglo-Mexican mine, and in 1825 he published a pamphlet on its ‘actual state.’ An amusing account of his speculations in such undertakings, as narrated in a stage-coach journey, is given in the ‘Diary’ of Charles Abbot, first baron Colchester (iii. 443–4). The Mexican adventure probably proved a failure, and the last years of Adams's life seem not to have been attended with success. He died at Upper Gloucester Place, Dorset Square, London, on 4 Feb. 1827, and was buried in St. John's Wood cemetery, St. Marylebone parish, on 9 Feb. His wife was Jane Eliza, fourth daughter and coheiress of Colonel George Rawson, M.P. for Armagh. She died in Rome in 1844, and was buried there. They had five children, the eldest of whom is the present Sir Rawson William Rawson. In compliance with the will of the widow of Colonel Rawson, and by royal license, Adams took the name of Rawson on 9 March 1825.

He published 1. ‘Practical Observations on Ectropion or Eversion of the Eyelids,’ 1812. 2. ‘Practical Enquiry into Causes of frequent Failure of the Operation of Depression,’ 1817. 3. ‘Treatise on Artificial Pupil,’ 1819. 4. ‘Present Operations and Future Prospects of the Mexican Mine Association,’ 1825. He contributed on ‘Egyptian Ophthalmia’ to ‘Tilloch's Philosophical Magazine,’ xli. 329–31 (1831), and ‘On the Operation of Cataract’ to the ‘London Medical Repository’ for 1814.

[Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub. ii. 551–553 (for bibliography of writings by him, and relating to him); Gent. Mag. 1827, pt. i. p. 187; Boase's Collectanea Cornub. pp. 789–90.] 

RAY. [See also .]

RAY, BENJAMIN (1704–1760), antiquary, son of Joseph Ray, merchant, and a kinsman of Maurice Johnson [q. v.], was born in 1704 at Spalding, Lincolnshire, where he was educated under Timothy Neve (1694–1757) [q. v.] He afterwards proceeded to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he was admitted a pensioner on 10 Oct. 1721, being then ‘aged 17,’ and graduated B.A. in 1725 and M.A. in 1730. After leaving the university he took orders, and became perpetual curate of Cowbit and Surfleet, Lincolnshire. From 1723 to 1736 he was master of the grammar school at Sleaford, where he also held a curacy. Ray was a member of the well-known ‘Gentlemen's Society’ of Spalding, to which Newton, Pope, Bentley, and Gay sometime belonged [see ]. He was secretary in 1735, and afterwards vice-president, and exhibited at meetings of the society many antiquities of great value and interest (, Diaries and Letters, Surtees Soc. iii. 125, 126, ii. 306). He communicated a paper by himself on ‘The Truth of the Christian Religion demonstrated from the Report propagated throughout the Gentile world about the birth of Christ, that a Messiah was expected, and from the authority of Heathen Writers, and from the Coins of the Roman Emperors.’ It was not printed. To the Royal Society Ray sent ‘Account of a Waterspout raised upon Land in Lincolnshire’ (Phil. Trans. Abr. 1751, x. 271), which Maurice Johnson described to Dr. Birch as ‘the most remarkable phenomenon communicated to us since Newton's time.’ Ray was also an authority upon coins (Gent. Mag. 1757, p. 499). He died unmarried at Spalding on 26 Aug. 1760. He is described as a ‘most ingenious and worthy man, possessed of good learning, but ignorant of the world, indolent and thoughtless, and often very absent.’ Some amusing instances of his absence of mind were communicated to Nichols by his friend, Samuel Pegge (Illustr. of Lit. viii. 548).

[Bibl. Topogr. Brit. 3rd ser. pt. i. No. 1 pp. xxxii–iii, No. 2 pp. 57, 58, 63, 413; Grad. Cant.; Gent. Mag. 1760, p. 443; Watt's Bibl. Brit. i. 793; Trollope's Sleaford, p. 73 (which gives the name as Wray); Chalmers's Biogr. Dict.] 

RAY, JAMES (fl. 1745), chronicler of the ‘45,’ was a native of Whitehaven in Cumberland. On the advance from Edinburgh of the rebel army under Prince Charles Edward Stuart, in the autumn of 1745, Ray marched with a party of his townsmen, who intended to join the royal garrison at Carlisle. But Carlisle surrendered to the rebels before he arrived, whereupon he followed the advance of the rebels to Derby as closely as he was able. All the information he obtained concerning them he reported to the Duke of Cumberland, whose forces he met at Stafford on 5 Jan. 1746. With the duke's army he continued till the final victory at Culloden. He published, probably in 1746, ‘The Acts of the Rebels, written by an Egyptian. Being an Abstract of the Journal of Mr. James Ray of Whitehaven, Volunteer under the Duke of Cumberland.’ This is a pamphlet of thirty-two pages, and was reprinted at Preston in 1881. About the same date he published ‘A Complete History of the Rebellion in 1745,’ of which many editions