Gray, David

(1838-1861)

   Born at Merkland near Kirkintilloch, Dumbartonshire, Scotland, the son of a hand-loom weaver, he became a pupil-teacher in Glasgow, then completed a course of four sessions at Glasgow University. He contributed poetry to The Glasgow Citizen and began his idyll on The Luggie, the little stream that ran through Merkland. Robert Buchanan (see entry) and Gray became friends and together they made for London in 1860, where Lord Houghton gave Gray some literary work. Gray contracted tuberculosis and Lord Houghton took him to Torquay, but his illness worsened and he returned to Merkland, where he died. He was buried in Kirkintilloch churchyard and Lord Houghton wrote the epitaph for the monument erected by friends in 1865. During his last year he wrote In the Shadows, a series of sonnets. The day before he died he saw the proofs of The Luggie. Robert Buchanan, who shared in his London hardships, tells of his brief life in David Gray and Other Essays (1868). Some of his other poems: "A Winter Ramble," "My Epitaph," "The Cross of Gold," "The Golden Wedding," "Where the Lilies Used to Spring."

   Sources: An American Anthology, 1787-1900. Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. Houghton Mifflin, 1900. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). Gray, David (18381861), The Poetical Works. Macmillan, 1874. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia).