of Messrs. White & Whitmore, solicitors, London, was called to the bar in 1838, and joined the Oxford circuit. Appointed queen's counsel in 1863, he became solicitor to the treasury in 1870, and during his tenure of the office conducted the celebrated prosecution of Arthur Orton, the claimant to the Tichborne title and estates, in 1873. Gray died on 22 Jan. 1875. He was author of ‘Gray's Country Attorney's Practice,’ 1836, and ‘The Country Solicitor's Practice,’ 1837, which were at the time considered valuable text-books; each passed through several editions. He was also the author of ‘Gray's Law of Costs,’ 1853.
[Information from G. F. Crowdy, esq.]
GRAY, Sir JOHN (1816–1875), journalist, was third son of John Gray of Claremorris, co. Mayo, where he was born in 1816. He graduated M.D. and master in surgery at Glasgow University on 24 April 1839, and in the same year became connected with a hospital in Dublin. Gray contributed to periodicals and the newspaper press, and in 1841 became joint proprietor of the Dublin ‘Freeman's Journal,’ which was issued daily and weekly. He acted as political editor of that newspaper, and, as a protestant nationalist, supported O'Connell's movement for the repeal of the union with England. In October 1843, Gray was indicted, with O'Connell and others, in the court of queen's bench, Dublin, on a charge of conspiracy against the queen. In the following February Gray was condemned to nine months' imprisonment, but early in September the sentence was reversed. Gray became sole proprietor of the ‘Freeman's Journal’ in 1850, increased its size, reduced its price, and extended its circulation. He advocated alterations in the Irish land laws, and was in 1852 an unsuccessful candidate for the representation of Monaghan in parliament. In the same year he was elected a councillor in the municipal corporation of Dublin, and took much interest in the improvement of that city. As chairman of the corporation committee for a new supply of water to Dublin, Gray actively promoted the Vartry scheme, in face of formidable opposition. On the occasion of turning the Vartry water into the new course in June 1863, Gray was knighted by the Earl of Carlisle, lord-lieutenant. In 1865 Gray was elected M.P. for Kilkenny city. He advocated the abolition of the Irish protestant church establishment, reform of the land laws, and free denominational education. Through the ‘Freeman's Journal’ he instituted a commission into the condition of the protestant church in Ireland. The results appeared in the ‘Freeman.’ He published in 1866 a volume entitled ‘The Church Establishment in Ireland,’ which included a detailed statement respecting disestablishment made by him in the House of Commons on 11 April 1866. In 1868 he was re-elected member for Kilkenny city, and in the same year he declined the office of lord mayor of Dublin, to which he had been elected. He frequently spoke in the house on Irish questions, and in 1869 delivered an address at Manchester on the land question. Gray was a ready and effective speaker. A public testimonial of 3,500l. was presented to him in acknowledgment of his labours in connection with disestablishment. He originated the legislation for abolition of obnoxious oaths, and promoted the establishment of the fire brigade and new cattle market at Dublin. In 1874 he was elected for the third time as member for Kilkenny. Gray died at Bath on 9 April 1875. A marble statue of him was erected in 1879 in Sackville or O'Connell Street, Dublin. His son, Edmund Dwyer Gray, is separately noticed.
[Freeman's Journal, 1844–1875; Report of Proceedings in case of the Queen against O'Connell and others, 1844; Return to order of House of Commons in relation to Water-supply of Dublin, 1865; The Church Establishment in Ireland, 1868; Reports of Municipal Council of Dublin, 1850–75; Life and Times of O'Connell, by C. M. O'Keeffe, 1864; Correspondence of O'Connell, ed. W. J. Fitzpatrick, 1888.]
GRAY, JOHN EDWARD (1800–1875), naturalist, born at Walsall, Staffordshire, 12 Feb. 1800, was the second son of Samuel Frederick Gray [q. v.], chemist, then of Walsall. He was a weakly child, and for some years was unable to eat meat. He was intended for the medical profession. His father moved to London, and when he was eighteen he entered the laboratory of a chemist in Cripplegate. Before this he had been elected by his fellow-students to lecture on botany at the Borough School of Medicine, the regular lecturer, apparently Richard Anthony Salisbury [q. v.], being incapacitated. Shortly afterwards he entered the medical schools of St. Bartholomew's and the Middlesex hospitals, and the classes held by Mr. Taunton in Hatton Garden and Maze Pond. He taught the principles of Jussieu, in conjunction with his father, at the Middlesex Hospital and at Sloane Street Botanical Garden, for a few years before 1821. In that year the ‘Natural Arrangement of British Plants’ was issued under his father's name, though the synoptical portion, by far the larger part of the work, was due to Gray, with the assistance of Salisbury, Edward and John Joseph Bennett, De Candolle, and Dunal. About this time he had been introduced to Dr.
