Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Reay, Stephen
REAY, STEPHEN (1782–1861), orientalist, only son of Rev. John Reay, born at Montrose on 29 March 1782, first studied at Edinburgh under Dalziel and Dugald Stewart, and graduated in 1802. After his ordination, in 1806, he was licensed to several curacies, but later in life resumed his studies at Oxford, where he matriculated in 1814 at St. Alban's Hall, graduating B.A. in 1817 (M.A. 1823 and B.D. 1841), and becoming for some time vice-principal of his hall. In 1828 he was appointed sub-librarian of the Bodleian Library, where he had charge of the oriental books, and in 1840 Laudian professor of Arabic. He held both offices till his death (20 Jan. 1861). Though contemporary writers pay high tributes to his learning and scholarship, his literary work was confined to a single pseudonymous pamphlet (‘Observations on the Defence of the Church Missionary Society against the Objections of the Archdeacon of Bath,’ by Pileus Quadratus, 1818); and his name will probably be remembered among scholars only by the references to it in the ‘Monumenta Phœnicia’ of Gesenius, who obtained from Reay copies of the Phœnician inscription at Oxford.
[Gent. Mag. 1861, pt. 1.; Macray's Annals of the Bodleian; Foster's Alumni Oxon.]