Mary Augusta Gray

Mary Augusta Gray was a member of a slave-owning family who is buried in the graveyard at All Saints Church in Little Shelford.

Mary Augusta Gray’s husband and father in law were owners of 144 slaves at the Virgin Valley Estate in St James in Jamaica.

She received a share of £2,800 in May 1837 as part of the compensation from the Government when slavery was abolished.

Mary Gray was the widow of Charles Gordon Gray, who she married in 1820 but who died in Jamaica in 1823. She was also the daughter in law of Charles Gordon Gray who owned the Virgin Valley estate.

Mary Gray was living at the Manor House in Little Shelford when she died in 1870 aged 75

It is not known when she returned from Jamaica, where her daughter Augusta was born, to live in the UK. In 1861, Mary Gray, then aged 65 was living at Bush Hall, Hatfield, Hertfordshire with her daughter, two cousins and six servants.