Walter Gray
Mayor of Oxford 1888/9, 1893/4, 1897/8, and 1901/2
Walter Gray (1848–1918) has been described as "the Father of English Conservatism".
His father was Thomas Gray, a Cambridgeshire farmer’s son who had run off with his sweetheart and settled in Weston in Hertfordshire where he got a job as a hurdle-maker. As well as Walter himself, who born in 1848, Thomas and his wife had two other sons (William, and Francis) and two daughters (Maud and Hilda).
Gray was grew up in Weston and was educated at Stevenage Grammar School. He took his first job in a solicitor’s office in Baldock; but when the solicitor went bankrupt, he joined his younger brother in working for the Great Western Railway. His first job was as a porter at Chalk Farm, where he and two other porters shared the same bed in three shifts.
Gray progressed to ticket-collector; and then at the age of 22 became stationmaster at Waddington in Lincolnshire. Colonel John Shaw-Stewart, a member of the council of the brand-new Keble College in Oxford (whose foundation stone had been laid in 1868) frequently used this station and so came to know Gray. He thought that he would make an excellent Steward for the college, and in 1870 Gray started work there: he was given a free cottage in Oxford and a salary of £50 a year. He was successful at the job and also began to educate himself in finance by reading newspapers and talking to members of the Conservative Club to which he belonged.
The 1871 census shows Gray as a young man of 24 living in Keble College property and described as a "college builder".
In 1877 it was recommended by a Government Commission that Fellows of Colleges should be allowed to marry, and Gray foresaw the need for new housing in Oxford. He borrowed £600, took an option of a plot of land from St John’s College, drew up plans for three houses, and sold all three to Mr Gorman, who was coming with his wife to Oxford as the new curate of the University Church.
Gray married Emily Alice Savage, and their son, Francis James (always known as Frank) was born on 31 August 1880.
At the time of the 1881 census, Gray’s speculative building career was only just taking off. At the age of 34 he is still simply the College Steward at Keble College, living at 7 Blackhall Road with his wife and children. In that year he was elected a Conservative councillor for the North Ward.
Soon after the census, however, Gray was able to give up his job at Keble. He went into partnership with the builder John Money and made his fortune in speculative development. His success partly lay in the fact that he was involved with small houses (such as those in Kingston Road) as well as large ones. In 1883 he was appointed liquidator of a rival company, the Oxford Building and Investment Company, and took over the New Inn Hall Street office of its Secretary and Surveyor, former mayor John Galpin. Henceforth Gray was responsible for most of the development of North Oxford, joining together with Harry Wilkinson Moore as developer and architect. Thus Gray was responsible for many of the houses in St Margaret’s, Rawlinson, Polstead, and Chalfont Roads.
In 1888 Gray was elected Mayor of Oxford (for 1888/9).
At the time of the 1891 census Gray was living at 1 St Margaret’s Road. Aged 44, he is described as a surveyor and Justice of the Peace. Their three children, Maude, Hilda, and Francis, were 14, 12, and 10 respectively. The family had a cook and a housemaid. The situation in 1901 was similar, and Francis (Frank), now 20, was an articled clerk.
In 1893 Gray was elected Mayor a second time (for 1893/4), and in 1897 a third time (for 1897/8)
In 1901 Gray and his family moved to The Lodge in Middle Way, Summertown (the former home of Owen Grimbly). In that year he was elected Mayor a fourth and last time (for 1901/2). He was thus mayor at the time of the Coronation of King Edward VII on 9 August 1902, and was knighted in 1903.
Gray’s arms (left) appear in stained glass in the high windows of the Council Chamber. A wooden version of Gray’s arms (top right) was also added to the wall of the Lord Mayor’s Parlour when he served as Chief Magistrate
Because Gray was on the Municipal Buildings Committee when the new Town Hall was opened (1897), his head is carved in stone in the Council Chamber corridor (bottom right).
On census night 1911, Walter Gray (now 63 and described as a county magistrate) was staying at a big hotel in Russell Square, London, while his son Frank (a solicitor of 31) was staying at the Clarendon Hotel in Oxford.
In 1917, when Lord Valentia retired from the House of Commons, Walter Gray decided to try for Parliament, but the Tory selection committee chose instead the historian J.A.R. Marriott. Gray went off on holiday in Northumberland to get over the disappointment, and died there in 1918. He is buried in Wolvercote Cemetery. His son Frank, the founder of the Oxford Mail, was to represent Oxford in Parliament from 1922 to 1924, but as a Liberal.
See also:
- Charles Fenby, The Other Oxford: The Life and Times of Frank Gray and his Father (London: Lund Humphries, 1970)
- Tanis Hinchcliffe, North Oxford (Yale University Press), pp. 52, 60–3, 78–80, 85, 119–20, 123, 146, 210
- Portrait of Walter Gray in the Assembly Room of the Town Hall (shown above)
- Oxfordshire County News, 25 February 1898, p. 11
- Oxford Journal Illustrated, 19 May 1915, p. 9 ("Who’s Who in Oxford")
- Oxford Journal Illustrated, 20 March 1918, p. 3c (obituary)
- Oxford Journal Illustrated, 27 March 1918, pp. 1, 7, 8a–b (funeral)
- Oxford Journal Illustrated, 15 May 1918, p. 10b–c (will)
- 1871 Census: Oxford (St Paul), 1436/83
- 1881 Census: Oxford (St Giles), 1499/143
- 1891 Census: Oxford (St Giles 4), 1166/87
- 1901 Census: Oxford (St Giels), 1381/36