State Library of South Australia

Papers of William Henry Gray [PRG 1690/5/2] • Manuscript

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Summary

Records comprising: certificates of baptism and apprenticeship for William Henry Gray and apprenticeship certificate for his father Thomas Gray (1793-1822); personal and business correspondence including letters regarding the purchase of land in South Australia in 1835, letters from his sister Elizabeth and uncle Joseph, and friends and acquaintances in South Australia including Thomas Young Cotter, Richard Fydell Lindsay and F.S.C. Driffield (1834-1897); copies of W.H. Gray's obituary including reminiscences of the early days settling in Adelaide in 1837; newspaper cuttings relating to Gray and Scammell family history; and miscellaneous papers including family history notes, letter from the widow of Frank Gray, and origin of street names in the suburb of Gray in Palmerston, Northern Territory. See below for details.

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Physical description

Manuscripts
handwritten
typed
photocopied
44 sheets ; 2 cm

Dates / Publication details

1793-1987

Creator

Gray, W. H

Subject

Gray, W. H. (William Henry), 1808-1896
Gray, Thomas
Gray (Family)
Scammell (Family)
Pioneers -- South Australia
South Australia -- Colonization
Reedbeds (S.A.)

Catalogue record

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General notes

See also PRG 1691 for papers of David Robert Scammell, a great-grandson of William Henry Gray. These papers were donated along with PRG 1690.

Historical information

William Henry Gray was one of South Australia's first settlers and property buyers. He was the son of Thomas and Ellen Gray and born in 1808 at Bermondsey, London on 18 January 1808. He was educated at the Bacon School, Grange-road, Bermondsey. He was apprenticed as a tanner from 1822 to 1829, then became interested by the possibility of emigrating to Australia after attending lectures in London in 1830, and made his first purchase of land in South Australia in 1834. In 1836 he purchased agricultural instruments and left England on the ship 'John Renwick' with his sister Elizabeth and two servants, arriving at Kangaroo Island in February 1837. He built one of the first houses in the city of Adelaide on North Terrace, thatched from reeds from the Reedbeds and poles from the bush in the Prospect area. He moved to Victoria during the gold rushes of the 1850s and lived in Melbourne for a time, shipping wheat to Victoria from South Australia. He travelled throughout Australia in the 1860s, journeying to the Northern Territory on an exploration party with John McKinlay, and was one of the first colonists to purchase land in the Northern Territory in 1870, and invested in large tracts of land in the Darwin, Palmerston and Southport areas. He then moved to Western Australia, examining timber production in Perth, and buying property at Eucla on the Great Australian Bight, before returning to Adelaide. W.H. Gray owned land in the Northern Territory along with his large estate, Frogmore at the Reedbeds, in Adelaide, and other city properties. He was Chairman of the District Council of West Torrens for over twenty years, and a member of the Freemasons. In 1861, aged 53, he married Rosetta Bagshaw, aged 19, daughter of J.S. Bagshaw, and they had nine children: Jane Ellen (1861-1946), Franklin James (1862-1953), Percy John (1864-1950), Herbert George (1866-1945), Alfred Fowler (1868-1964), Elizabeth Alice (1870-1958), Edith Clara (1872-), Florence Rose (1874-1874), and Walter Edwin (1876-1971). His daugther Elizabeth married Luther Robert Scammell, pharmaceutical manufacturer and son of Luther Scammell who was a chemist and partner of Francis Hardey Faulding in the firm F.H. Faulding & Co. William Henry Gray died at his home aged 89 on 6 September 1896.

Digitisation information

Date

23/05/2016

Format

image/tiff

Resolution

2,432 x 3,452 pixels (8.4 MP)

Size

25.21 MB

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