in physical science at the same time, and for five years studied at Oberlin College, where he taught for a time. He then investigated the subject of telegraphy, and in 1867 patented a telegraphic switch and annunciator. Experimenting in the transmittal of electro-tones and of musical tones by wire, he utilized in 1874 animal tissues in his receivers, and filed, on the 14th of February 1876, a caveat for the invention of a telephone, only a few hours after the filing of an application for a patent by Alexander Graham Bell. (See Telephone.) The caveat was disregarded; letters patent No. 174,465 were granted to Bell, whose priority of invention was upheld in 1888 by the United States Supreme Court (see Molecular Telephone Co. v. American Bell Telephone Co., 126 U.S. 1). Gray’s experiments won for him high praise and the decoration of the Legion of Honour at the Paris Exposition of 1878. He was for a time a manufacturer of electrical apparatus, particularly of his own inventions; and was chief electrical expert of the Western Electric Company of Chicago. At the Columbian Exposition of 1893 Gray was chairman of the International Congress of Electricians. He died at Newtonville, Massachusetts, on the 21st of January 1901. Among his later inventions were appliances for multiplex telegraphy and the telautograph, a machine for the electric transmission of handwriting. He experimented in the submarine use of electric bells for signalling.
Gray wrote, besides scientific addresses and many monographs, Telegraphy and Telephony (1878) and Electricity and Magnetism (1900).
GRAY, HENRY PETERS (1819–1877). American portrait
and genre painter, was born in New York on the 23rd of June
1819. He was a pupil of Daniel Huntington there, and subsequently
studied in Rome and Florence. Elected a member of
the National Academy of Design in 1842, he succeeded
Huntington as president in 1870, holding the position until 1871.
The later years of his life were devoted to portrait work. He
was strongly influenced by the old Italian masters, painting in
mellow colour with a classical tendency. One of his notable
canvases was an allegorical composition called “The Birth of
our Flag” (1875). He died in New York City on the 12th of
November 1877.
GRAY, HORACE (1828–1902), American jurist, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on the 24th of March 1828. He graduated at Harvard in 1845; was admitted to the bar in 1851, and in 1854–1861 was reporter to the Supreme Court of Massachusetts.
He practised law, first in partnership with Ebenezer Rockwood
Hoar, and later with Wilder Dwight (1823–1862) and Charles F. Blake; was appointed associate justice of the state Supreme
Court on the 23rd of August 1864, becoming chief-justice on the
5th of September 1873; and was associate justice of the Supreme
Court of the United States from December 1881 to August 1902,
resigning only a few weeks before his death at Nahant, Mass.,
on the 15th of September 1902. Gray had a fine sense of the
dignity of the bench, and a taste for historical study. His
judgments were unmistakably clear and contained the essence
of earlier opinions. A great case lawyer, he was a much greater
judge, the variety of his knowledge and his contributions to
admiralty and prize law and to testamentary law being particularly
striking; in constitutional law he was a “loose” rather than a “strict” constructionist.
See Francis C. Lowell, “Horace Gray,” in Proceedings of the American Academy, vol. 39, pp. 627-637 (Boston, 1904).
GRAY, JOHN DE (d. 1214), bishop of Norwich, entered
Prince John’s service, and at his accession (1199) was rapidly
promoted in the church till he became bishop of Norwich in
September 1200. King John’s attempt to force him into the
primacy in 1205 started the king’s long and fatal quarrel with
Pope Innocent III. De Gray was a hard-working royal official,
in finance, in justice, in action, using his position to enrich himself
and his family. In 1209 he went to Ireland to govern it as
justiciar. He adopted a forward policy, attempting to extend
the English frontier northward and westward, and fought a
number of campaigns on the Shannon and in Fermanagh. But
in 1212 he suffered a great defeat. He assimilated the coinage of
Ireland to that of England, and tried to effect a similar reform
in Irish law. De Gray was a good financier, and could always
raise money: this probably explains the favour he enjoyed from
King John. In 1213 he is found with 500 knights at the great
muster at Barham Downs, when Philip Augustus was threatening
to invade England. After John’s reconciliation with Innocent
he was one of those exempted from the general pardon, and was
forced to go in person to Rome to obtain it. At Rome he so
completely gained over Innocent that the pope sent him back
with papal letters recommending his election to the bishopric of
Durham (1213); but he died at St Jean d’Audely in Poitou
on his homeward journey (October 1214).
GRAY, JOHN EDWARD (1800–1875), English naturalist,
born at Walsall, Staffordshire, in 1800, was the eldest of the
three sons of S. F. Gray, of that town, druggist and writer on
botany, and author of the Supplement to the Pharmacopoeia, &c.,
his grandfather being S. F. Gray, who translated the Philosophia
Botanica of Linnaeus for the Introduction to Botany of James
Lee (1715–1795). Gray studied at St Bartholomew’s and other
hospitals for the medical profession, but at an early age was
attracted to the pursuit of botany. He assisted his father by
collecting notes on botany and comparative anatomy and
zoology in Sir Joseph Banks’s library at the British Museum,
aided by Dr W. E. Leach, assistant keeper, and the systematic
synopsis of the Natural Arrangement of British Plants, 2 vols.,
1821, was prepared by him, his father writing the preface and
introduction only. In consequence of his application for membership
of the Linnaean Society being rejected in 1822, he turned
to the study of zoology, writing on zoophytes, shells, Mollusca
and Papilionidae, still aided by Dr Leach at the British Museum.
In December 1824 he obtained the post of assistant in that
institution; and from that date to December 1839, when J. G.
Children retired from the keepership, he had so zealously applied
himself to the study, classification and improvement of the
national collection of zoology that he was selected as the fittest
person to be entrusted with its charge. Immediately on his
appointment as keeper, he took in hand the revision of the
systematic arrangement of the collections; scientific catalogues
followed in rapid succession; the department was raised in
importance; its poverty as well as its wealth became known,
and whilst increased grants, donations and exchanges made
good many deficiencies, great numbers of students, foreign as
well as English, availed themselves of its resources to enlarge the
knowledge of zoology in all its branches. In spite of numerous
obstacles, he worked up the department, within a few years of
his appointment as keeper, to such a state of excellence as to
make it the rival of the cabinets of Leiden, Paris and Berlin;
and later on it was raised under his management to the dignity
of the largest and most complete zoological collection in the
world. Although seized with paralysis in 1870, he continued to
discharge the functions of keeper of zoology, and to contribute
papers to the Annals of Natural History, his favourite journal, and
to the transactions of a few of the learned societies; but at
Christmas 1874, having completed half a century of official
work, he resigned office, and died in London on the 7th of March
1875.
Gray was an exceedingly voluminous writer, and his interests were not confined to natural history only, for he took an active part in questions of public importance of his day, such as slave emancipation, prison discipline, abolition of imprisonment for debt, sanitary and municipal organizations, the decimal system, public education, extension of the opening of museums, &c. He began to publish in 1820, and continued till the year of his death.
The titles of the books, memoirs and miscellaneous papers written by him, accompanied by a few notes, fill a privately printed list of 56 octavo pages with 1162 entries.
GRAY, PATRICK GRAY, 6th Baron (d. 1612), was descended from Sir Andrew Gray (c. 1390–1469) of Broxmouth and Foulis, who was created a Scottish peer as Lord Gray, probably in 1445. Andrew was a leading figure in Scottish politics during the reigns of James I. and his two successors, and visited England as a
