page_title: W. H. Gray
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: W. H. Gray / History
caption_attribution_description: English: William Henry Gray (1808–1896) of the Reedbeds, Adelaide, c. 1870
context_page_description: William Henry Gray, generally known as W. H. Gray, was a pioneer colonist of South Australia who amassed considerable wealth through ownership and development of land.
context_section_description: Gray was born to Thomas and Ellen Gray in Bermondsey, London, England and baptised in St Mary's Church, Newington on 4 September 1808. He was educated at Bacon's School on Grange Road, Bermondsey, apprenticed as a tanner, and worked at that trade until the age of 29 years. From around 1830 he attended night classes in London, where he made the acquaintance of Robert Thomas, founder of The Register, and J. M. Skipper, and through them became interested in the theories of E. G. Wakefield and the projected colony of South Australia.
  Gray, his sister Elizabeth, and two servants emigrated to South Australia aboard John Renwick, six months after the "First Fleet of South Australia", arriving in February, 1837. He had purchased the rights to three (as yet unsurveyed and unallocated) land packages consisting of one town acre (0.40 ha) and one country property of 80 acres (32 ha) from the South Australian Company for a total outlay of £243. The 80 acres was later increased to 134 acres (54 ha).
  Colonel Light completed his city survey in March 1837 and purchasers of preliminary town acres were able to make their selections in turn, as determined by lot. City acres not selected were then auctioned, and Gray picked up another 14 of the 595 offered, at a total cost of £126 6s.
  Most of Gray's selections were in the north-west corner of the city, his rationale being that business would develop close to the Port Road. 
  Gray and his manservant built a thatched pug and pine cottage on one of his North Terrace allotments, so the little party could move from their tents to something more secure and comfortable. 
  His properties were acre 3 on North Terrace, 60–62 on the north side and 63–65 on the south side of Hindley Street and 119–123 on the north side of  Currie Street. Sections 3, 60, 65 and 122 ran in a straight line between North Terrace and Currie Street, and Gray ran a thoroughfare (Gray Street) through the middle of them, and built cottages on either side; some quite densely packed. Acre 63 later became the site of "Campden", his town house.
  His other selections were in North Adelaide: Kermode Street, Brougham Place, Childers Street and Barton Terrace. Acre 727 on Brougham Place and 722 on Kermode Street were contiguous, and Gray drove a thoroughfare (Bagot's Lane) through their centres. Town Acre 747 on Barton Terrace he left intact and later became the site of Ru Rua Hospital.
  A limited number of country sections became available for selection in May 1838 and preliminary purchasers like Gray were in a good position to choose the better land, and closer to the city. He was entitled to three, and chose sections 203 just north of Glenelg, 420 near Port Adelaide in the angle between the Old and New Port Roads, and 376 on the Port Road much closer to the city. Then in the release to the general public he picked up another six sections north of 203, giving him around 600 acres (240 ha) in the West Beach area.
  This was the beginning of his holdings in The Reedbeds area, the shallow marshland of the Torrens outlet which includes the modern suburbs Fulham, Lockleys and Underdale.
  By 1843 he and his tenants had 100 acres of wheat and 10 of barley and some pigs, cows and horses beside.
  In the early 1840s the Colony was bankrupted by Governor Gawler's lavish spending on infrastructure (largely to stave off unemployment) and George Grey  was sent out to replace him, and effected strict economies. In the resulting recession, many colonists were made insolvent, and Gray, who relied on rent from his city cottages for much of his income, was forced to borrow heavily in a desperate gamble to avoid joining them. By 1845 however, with a little help from the Burra copper mine, the colony's economy had turned around and by 1848 Gray had repaid his creditors.
  In 1850–1851 Gray added another 328 acres (133 ha) including sections 165, 215, 216 and 169 to his holdings in the Reedbeds area, but later that year an exodus of able-bodied men from South Australia to the Victorian goldfields began, and until late 1853 when the tide started to turn, income from 
caption: William Henry Gray (1808–1896) of the Reedbeds, Adelaide, c. 1870
exif: {}