Thomas Reid [q. v.], who recorded most of what is known of his grandfather's career.
Gregory was ridiculed by his neighbours for his ignorance of farming, but regarded as an oracle in medicine. He had a large gratuitous practice among the poor, and was often called in by people of standing also, but would never accept a fee. Being much occupied by his practice by day, he retired to bed early, rose about 2 or 3 a.m., shut himself in with his books and instruments for several hours, and then had another hour's rest before breakfast. He was the first man about Aberdeenshire to possess a barometer, and it is said that his forecasts of weather exposed him to suspicions of witchcraft or conjuration. About the beginning of the eighteenth century he removed to Aberdeen, and during the wars of Queen Anne turned his attention to the improvement of artillery. With the help of an Aberdeen watchmaker he constructed a model of improved cannon, and prepared to take it to Flanders. Meanwhile he forwarded his model to his son David (1661-1708) [q. v.], the Savilian professor, and to Newton. Newton held that it was only calculated for the diabolical purpose of increasing carnage, and urged the professor to break up the model, which was never afterwards found. During the rebellion of 1715 Gregory went a second time to Holland, returning when the trouble had subsided to Aberdeen. He appears to have been discouraged from further invention, and devoted the later years of his long life to the compilation of a history of his time and country which was never published. He died in 1720.
[Dr. Reid's additions to the Lives of the Gregorys in Hutton's Mathematical Dict.]
GREGORY, DAVID (1696–1767), dean of Christ Church, Oxford, was the son of Dr. David Gregory (1661–1708) [q. v.], Savilian professor at Oxford. Two years after his father's death Gregory was admitted a queen's scholar of Westminster School, whence in 1714 he was elected to Christ Church. He graduated B.A. 8 May 1718, and M.A. 27 June 1721, and on 18 April 1724 became the first professor of modern history and languages at Oxford. He soon afterwards took orders and was appointed rector of Semley, Wiltshire; proceeding B.D. 13 March 1731 and D.D. in the following year (7 July 1732). He continued to hold his professorship till 1736, when he resigned it on his appointment to a canonry in Christ Church Cathedral (installed 8 June). Twenty years later he was promoted to the deanery (installed 18 May 1756), and 15 Sept. 1759 was also appointed master of Sherborne Hospital, Durham. In 1761 he was prolocutor of the lower house of convocation. He died at the age of seventy-one, 16 Sept. 1767, and was buried under a plain slab with a short Latin inscription in the cathedral; his picture hangs in the college hall. He was son-in-law to the Duke of Kent, having married Lady Mary Grey, who died before him (in 1762, aged 42), and lies in the same grave. Gregory was a considerable benefactor both to his college and Sherborne Hospital. While canon (1750) he repaired and adorned Christ Church Hall, and presented to it busts of the two first kings of the house of Hanover. Under his directions when dean the upper rooms in the college library were finished (1761), and he is said to have raised the terrace in the great quadrangle. At Sherborne he began by cutting down a wood on the hospital estates, and with the proceeds from the sale of the timber erected a new building for the poorer brethren, twenty rooms with a common hall in the centre. A eulogy of Gregory written by an anonymous author (Essay on the Life of David Gregory, late Dean of Christ Church, London, 1769, 4to) says that before his time the brethren of Sherborne were huddled together in wretched little huts. Gregory employed his leisure in writing Latin verses, and testified his loyalty by Latin poems on the death of George I and the accession of George II, lamenting also in verse the death of the latter, and congratulating George III when he succeeded his grandfather.
[Welch's Alumni Westm. pp. 252, 262; Cat. of Oxford Graduates, 1659–1750, p. 274; Gutch's Hist. and Antiq. of the University of Oxford, iii. 442, 457, 460, 479, Append. 282; Cole MS. xxvii. 246–7; Surtees's Durham, i. 143.]
GREGORY, DONALD (d. 1836), antiquary, was secretary to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and to the Iona Club, and was a member of the Ossianic Society of Glasgow and the Royal Society of the Antiquaries of the North at Copenhagen. About 1830 he announced his intention of publishing a work on the Western Highlands and Isles of Scotland (which he frequently visited) and received help and information from many quarters. The book was published at Edinburgh in 1836, 8vo, as ‘History of the Western Highlands and Isles of Scotland from .… 1493 to … 1625; with on introductory sketch from A.D. 80 to 1493' (reviewed in ‘The Athenæum’ for 18 March 1837, p. 188 f.) A second edition was published in 1881, 8vo. Gregory died at Edinburgh on 21 0ct. 1836.
[Gent. Mag. 1836, pt. ii. p. 668; Gregory's Western Higlands.]
