William GRAY

GRAY, WILLIAM (b. Sheoak Log Farm, Gawler, SA, 23 July 1854; d. 21 July 1937). First missionary of the Presbyterian Church SA to the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu), influential churchman in SA; Smith of Dunesk Mission SA 1925-1928.

Son of Scots parents who emigrated in 1851, William Gray heard God's call to missionary service while a lad on the farm. After graduating BA at Adelaide University, he completed the licentiate in divinity at Union College 1880. Licensed in 1881, he took medical classes while opening the Goodwood Presbyterian charge. He married Elizabeth McEwen of Mt Barker, and was ordained 15 Dec 1881 as a missionary to Weasisi, east Tanna. There he produced a grammar, primer, catechism and Luke's Gospel in the vernacular. He found the native tribes unsettled by labour recruiting and fighting and saw few converts and no baptisms. He opened contact with west Tanna and oversaw Aniwa. He also prepared the local synod's constitution, adopted in 1892, and the Rules for Guidance of Missionaries. Four of his seven children were born on Tanna and one died there. On 27 Nov 1894 he was farewelled by grateful worshippers. In 1895 he wrote The Kanaka, a book which was useful in the labour recruiting debate. Gray's ministry in SA was tireless, energetic, resourceful and enduring: Jamestown 1895-1904; Home Mission organiser 1905; General Agent 190517, clerk of General Assembly 1902-6, 190910, acting-principal Chapman-Alexander Bible College 1917-22. Mrs Gray died in 1921. Gray was minister, Morphett Vale 1923-24; moderator SA 1900, 1929; agent in the Smith of Dunesk Mission, Beltana, 1925-28, with 40 000 square miles to cover. He retired 1928 and died, aged eighty-three, busy with the history of the church in SA; 'a man of dogged purpose, but ever helpful, genial and generous to all'. Gray's life-purpose is reflected in a letter to a young minister in 1913: 'Go out after the people, who they are or what they are ... You have been set apart to be the mouthpiece of God ... Woe to the man who ... wastes his opportunity'. (Scrimgeour, Some Scots Were Here, 213, 214)

W Gray, 'Notes on Tanna' Proceedings of the Australasian Assn for Advancement of Science, vol 4 (1892); W Gray, The Kanaka (Adelaide, 1895); W Gray, Days and Nights in the Bush (Sydney, 1935); W Gray, Diaries and Papers to be microfilmed by Pacific Manuscripts Bureau, ANU; J G Miller, Live vol 4 (Lawson, NSW, 1986); R J Scrimgeour, Some Scots Were Here (Adelaide, 1986)

J GRAHAM MILLER