Life after service
He was living in Chatham in 1864, but emigrated to Australia in 1867 and settled near Fremantle, where he died c.1891.
According to his great-granddaughter (who married an Englishman and is now [1980] living in the Midlands), he married a Maria Wickcliffe [spelling?] before going to Australia. A child of this marriage is believed to have died on board ship during the passage out.
[PB: This was indeed the case, see below.]
Apparently, at some time or other a grant of land was made to "Maria Gray, wife of Warder Gray at Freemantle Prison." John Gray and Henry Dyson Naylor evidently worked there together at some period.
The Dictionary of Western Australian Immigrants merely shows him as:
John Richard Gray, son of James [sic] (painter) (Widower) mar. 2nd 7/9/1872 (Fremantle.) C/E.) Maria Wicckliffe, dau. of James, (Joiner). Fremantle, Warder 1872. (13 years' service.) C. of E.
[PB, May 2014: Diane Oldman has recently published a detailed article, "John Richard Gray — an honest to goodness survivor of the Charge of the Light Brigade in Western Australia".]
In May 1856 Gray returned home to his relatively new bride: he had married Isabella Kersey in Ipswich, Suffolk at the end of 1853. The regiment was barracked there at the time, and Isabella was a local girl, daughter of Thomas and Rachel Kersey. The couple travelled with the regiment to various stations in England until Gray was discharged in Dublin in May 1861.
He was discharged 'unfit for further service' with a pension of eight pence per day for three years after serving 12 years and 171 days in the British Army. Gray's intended residence was 27, Norwich Road, Ipswich; if not the Kersey residence, it was close to it. Thomas Kersey, Isabella's father, operated a French polishing business in one of the many yards off Norwich Road.
The Prison Service
Gray joined the prison service and by July 1863 was an Assistant Warder at Chatham Prison. In March 1866 he applied for a position in Western Australia and was deemed suitable as he was given four months' advance salary and good conduct pay from 1st July. Gray, and presumably Isabella, boarded the Belgravia and arrived in Fremantle on 4th July. What happened to Isabella is a mystery. Did they bring any children to Western Australia? No death has been recorded for Isabella, nor births or deaths of any children of the couple.
Gray remained in the WA prison service supervising convicts on various public works. He appears to have been in the Albany area from 1868 to 1871 with mixed reports on his activities: he was accused of trafficking in kangaroo skins and in May 1869: Report by the Resident Magistrate in Albany for "repeatedly disobeying verbal and written orders about how the metal was to be laid on the road and a falsehood in stating that it was done as ordered. There was only 6 ins instead of 12 ins of metal and gravel spread ... having no one to send in his place I have no choice but to leave him where he is, but he is not to be trusted."
However in 1871 the resident magistrate records after a visit to one of the camps, I found both the sanitary and disciplinary condition of the men excellent...the huts were all clean and neat...I heard no complaints of the quality of the food." And the Road Board expressed their satisfaction with the way in which he had carried out work at the road party near Albany. In March 1872 the Albany Depot was closed and Gray returned to Fremantle with the last of the prisoners under police escort. (Barker: 87).
A Visit to Ireland?
In 1872 John Richard Gray married Maria Wickliffe. There is a record of the birth of John Lewis Gray in Tullynewtane, Antrim, Ireland on 16 May 1878: father John Richard Gray, mother: Maria Wickcliffe Gray. The last records of John Richard Gray in Barker's Dictionary (see sources) are over the entire period from August 1877 to October 1879.
Is this birth in Ireland some extraordinary coincidence, or did Maria Gray visit Ireland for some purpose? There are no marriage or death records in Western Australia for a John Lewis Gray thus we have to assume this child died in Ireland. [PB: see below.] Maria certainly returned to WA — if she had ever been to Ireland in the first place — because Elizabeth Minnie Gray was born in Fremantle 1879, married a Thomas Flintoff in 1902 providing John Richard Gray with two grandchildren.
Stop Thief
Gray's close proximity to the prisoners had its downside. In April 1872 the police reported finding Gray's watch in the possession of a ticket of leave man in Albany — it was returned to Gray. At North Fremantle in June 1872, two men were charged with unlawful possession of gold and jewelry belonging to Gray. Then in October 1873 the Gray's home in North Fremantle was robbed of a cash box containing watches and jewelry; and in February 1875 another break-in — this time the theft of wearing apparel. Fremantle Herald, 10 Oct 1873 Western Australian Times, 16 Feb 1875
John Richard Gray died on 24 Jun 1891 aged 60 from 'Paralysis Alcoholism (Acute)'. He was buried the following day in the Alma Street Cemetery. He had made a Will in favour of his wife Maria who was named executrix.
[Source: crimeanwar-veteranswa.com/stories/a-real-charger. See also DO's updated (November 2016) webpage on JG: crimeanwar-veteranswa.com/veterans-index/g-h/gray-john-richard.]
[PB, August 2015: Thanks to Wendy Leahy it is now known that John Lewis Gray died as an infant on 16th of November 1878 during the journey back to Fremantle. Reports of "Johnnie's" death appeared in Belfast newspapers three months later, on 25th February 1879.]
