During Henry George's formative years, there were three men in his life who he might have used as role models. We know little of his father, but Henry George Muddle Sr appears to have been a respectable, hard-working man who, after working for his step-father at Edgwarebury for many years, went on to farm his own 110 acres at Stoneyfields. Charles Muddle appears to have been successful at almost everything he turned his hand to and his busy life was chronicled at length in all the local newspapers. But it was James Bray who may have provided Henry George with the best blueprint for a useful and productive life.

Bray had started farming at Shoelands Farm in Edgware in the mid 1850s. Then in 1861 he joined his father at Broadfields Farm on Hale Lane, continuing to farm there after his father's death. Sometime in the 1870s he added to his 76 acre farm at Broadfields by renting a further 42 acres of land from All Souls, Oxford ~ beginning a long association with the college, which owned the Manor of Edgware.

By the 1880s, the number of acres that James Bray farmed at Edgware had increased to more than three hundred. In the 1881 census, he is listed as employing five men and two boys and farming 305 acres. Not only did this make him one of the largest landholders in the area, but it also made him one of the more important tenants farming All Souls land in Middlesex. In June, 1894, some of the tenants traveled to Oxford for a luncheon, at which the Warden stressed the importance to the college of the revenue from the Middlesex estates, mentioning Mr Bray specifically.

As well as farming at Edgwarebury, James Bray was one of the most prominent citizens in Edgware and was involved in numerous civic activities. By the 1890s, he was one of two representatives from Edgware serving on the Board of Guardians for the Workhouse at Hendon. He was a member of the Hendon Sanitary Authority, the Edgware Ratepayers Association and the Edgware School Board. Bray was present on 22nd June 1896 when the new Board School off the High Street was opened.

In 1894 when a new 'Urban District Council' was proposed to take the place of the Parish Councils, Bray was appointed to the committee which represented local opinion at the official inquiry. He was also one of the Parish Overseers for many years, served as Churchwarden at the Parish Church of St. Margaret and was an active member of the Middlesex and Hertfordshire Hay Show Society. There were very few weeks when his attendance at one meeting or another wasn't reported in the local newspaper. Such was his importance in the area that there were times when even his health was considered newsworthy.

When James Bray died in 1904, numerous tributes were paid to him by the many institutions with which he had been connected and there was an impressive gathering of mourners at his funeral, which was held at St Margaret's. There was also a large number of floral tributes including one from I. E. B. Cox and another inscribed 'with deepest sympathy and great respect for our late master from his employees'.

No doubt there were people in the town quick to compare Henry George with his Father, his Uncle Charles, but especially his highly respected Grandfather at Edgwarebury. It would have been difficult for anyone to measure up to Bray, and Henry George was possibly not the person to try. But, for a few short years, as he married and opened his shop on the High Street, the people in Edgware who took notice of such things had good reason to think that he might be following in his grandfather's footsteps.