William Trewartha Bray (1 June 1794 – 25 May 1868), known as Billy Bray, was an unconventional
Cornish preacher
A preacher is a person who delivers sermons or homilies on religious topics to an assembly of people. Less common are preachers who preach on the street, or those whose message is not necessarily religious, but who preach components such as a ...
.
Biography
Billy Bray was born in 1794 in the village of
Twelveheads
Twelveheads ( kw, Dewdhek Stamp) is a hamlet east of St Day in west Cornwall, England, United Kingdom.Ordnance Survey ''One-inch Map of Great Britain; Truro and Falmouth, sheet 190''. 1961 It lies in the parish of Chacewater, between Truro and ...
,
Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...
, England, UK. He was the eldest of three children born to William Bray, who was a miner, and his wife Ann, who came from
Gwennap
Gwennap ( kw, Lannwenep (village), Pluw Wenep (parish)) is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Cornwall, England. It is about five miles (8 km) southeast of Redruth. Hamlets of Burncoose, Comford, Coombe, Gwennap, Coomb ...
. William Bray died when his children were young and they were cared for by their grandfather, who was a pious
Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...
. After leaving school, Billy Bray worked as a miner in Cornwall and for seven years in Devon; during this time he was a drunkard and was prone to riotous behaviour. In 1821 he married Joanna, who was a lapsed Methodist and they eventually had seven children.
In 1823 he had a close escape from a mining accident, and later said that he was converted in November of that year through reading
John Bunyan
John Bunyan (; baptised 30 November 162831 August 1688) was an English writer and Puritan preacher best remembered as the author of the Christian allegory ''The Pilgrim's Progress,'' which also became an influential literary model. In addition ...
's ''Visions of Heaven and Hell''.
[Bourne (1872), p. 4, and Martin (2009). The book referred to as being by Bunyan is now known to have been written by the publisher George Larkin and was first published in 1711 under the title ''The world to come; or, The glories of heaven and the terrors of hell lively displayed under the similitude of a vision. "A prospect of heaven; A prospect of hell."'' See, for instance, ] He became attached to a group of Methodists known as the
Bible Christian
The Bible Christian Church was a Methodist denomination founded by William O’Bryan, a Wesleyan Methodist local preacher, on 18 October 1815 in North Cornwall. The first society, consisting of just 22 members, met at Lake Farm in Shebbear, ...
s, and became a well-known but unconventional preacher; his sermons being enlivened by spontaneous outbursts of singing and dancing.
Bray did not restrict his activities to preaching, raising two orphans along with his own children and generously giving help to other people. He also raised enough funds to build three new Methodist chapels, one in his home village of Twelveheads, one at
Carharrack
Carharrack ( kw, Karardhek) is a civil parish and village in west Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated two miles (3 km) east of Redruth in a former mining area.
The parish is of a rural/residential character, albeit with an ...
, and one—nicknamed 'Three Eyes' chapel because of its three windows—at nearby
Kerley Downs.
![Billy Bray's 'Three eyes' chapel on Kerley Downs - geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Billy_Bray%27s_%27Three_eyes%27_chapel_on_Kerley_Downs_-_geograph.org.uk_-_69092.jpg)
Bray died in 1868 and is buried at the parish church of Saint Michael and All Angels in
Baldhu
Baldhu (; kw, Bal Du, meaning ''black mine'') is a village and parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is in the civil parish of Kea.
The parish church of Saint Michael and All Angels, designed by William White, is the burial place of ...
where his grave is marked by a granite obelisk. In 1984 the 'Three Eyes' chapel, the only one of the three he built that is still standing,
was dedicated to his memory.
Legacy
F. W. Bourne wrote a biography of Bray entitled ''A King's Son'' which, after its first publication in 1871, went through many editions under several titles for over a hundred years.
[A number of these editions and variant titles are listed in the ]Copac
Copac (originally an acronym of Consortium of Online Public Access Catalogues) was a union catalogue which provided free access to the merged online catalogues of many major research libraries and specialist libraries in the United Kingdom and Ire ...
catalogu
here
Several early editions of the work are available online, such a
this 25th edition (1887)
at the Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
. According to this biography one of Bray's favourite sayings, which he used when people complained about his enthusiastic singing and shouting, was
William James
William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States.
James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...
referred to Bray as "an excellent little illiterate English evangelist" in his ''
The Varieties of Religious Experience
''The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature'' is a book by Harvard University psychologist and philosopher William James. It comprises his edited Gifford Lectures on natural theology, which were delivered at the University of ...
'' published in 1902.
Annie Dillard
Annie Dillard (born April 30, 1945) is an American author, best known for her narrative prose in both fiction and non-fiction. She has published works of poetry, essays, prose, and literary criticism, as well as two novels and one memoir. Her 19 ...
makes reference to Bray in the last sentence of her 1974
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
-winning ''Pilgrim at Tinker Creek''. ''Billy Bray in His Own Words'' by Chris Wright was published in 2004; it is based on the previously unpublished journal of Bray written in his own handwriting, that had lain untouched since the nineteenth century. Bray's life was celebrated by the
Devon
Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...
folk
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Sociology
*Nation
*People
* Folklore
** Folk art
** Folk dance
** Folk hero
** Folk music
*** Folk metal
*** Folk punk
*** Folk rock
** Folk religion
* Folk taxonomy
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Folk Plus or Fol ...
songwriter
A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music gen ...
Seth Lakeman
Seth,; el, Σήθ ''Sḗth''; ; "placed", "appointed") in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mandaeism, and Sethianism, was the third son of Adam and Eve and brother of Cain and Abel, their only other child mentioned by name in the Hebrew Bible. Ac ...
in the song "Preacher's Ghost" on his 2010 album ''Hearts and Minds''.
Michael Bentley has written a children's book about him that was published in 2012.
Retired minister's debut children's book is a true story
/ref>
Notes
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bray, Billy
1794 births
1868 deaths
Converts to Methodism
Cornish Methodists
Cornish evangelicals
People from Chacewater