Sir Francis Gray, 14th Lord Gray FRS

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and Literature, letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". ...

PSAS (1 September 1765 – 20 August 1842) was a Scottish peer, politician and soldier.

Life

He was born in

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

on 1 September 1765 the youngest of twelve children to John Gray, 11th Lord Gray and his wife Margaret Blair of

Kinfauns Kinfauns was a large 1950s deluxe bungalow in Esher in the English county of Surrey, on the Claremont Estate. From 1964 to 1970, it was the home of George Harrison, lead guitarist of the Beatles. It was where many of the demo recordings for t ...

(1720–1790). The family had a house at Adams Square in Edinburgh and a family seat in the north of Scotland at Fowlis Castle. He served in the Breadalbane Fencibles, a local militia, gaining the rank of Major by 1793. In 1807, following the death of his older brother, William John Gray, 13th Lord Gray he succeeded to the peerage. From 1807 to 1810 he served as Deputy Postmaster General in Scotland, being succeeded by James Sinclair, 12th Earl of Caithness. He sat in the

House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...

1812 to 1841. In 1812 he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...

. His proposers were

Ninian Imrie Lieutenant-Colonel Ninian Imrie of Denmuir (died 1820) was a Scottish army officer and geologist. He gave the first wholly geological description of the Rock of Gibraltar. He stirred the Plutonist versus Neptunist debate during the Scottish E ...

John Playfair John Playfair FRSE, FRS (10 March 1748 – 20 July 1819) was a Church of Scotland minister, remembered as a scientist and mathematician, and a professor of natural philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He is best known for his book ''Illu ...

and Sir John Leslie. He served as the Society's vice president from 1815 to 1823. In 1816 he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of London The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, r ...

. From 1819 to 1823 he served as president of the

Society of Antiquaries of Scotland The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland is the senior antiquarian body of Scotland, with its headquarters in the National Museum of Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh. The Society's aim is to promote the cultural heritage of Scotland. The usu ...

. In 1822 he commissioned Robert Smirke to build

Kinfauns Castle Kinfauns Castle is a 19th-century castle in the Scottish village of Kinfauns, Perth and Kinross, Kinfauns, Perth and Kinross. It is in the Castellated Gothic style, with a slight asymmetry typical of Scottish Georgian. It stands on a raised terr ...

. In 1825 he further commissioned William Trotter to execute suites of furniture for the castle. The building was ready for occupation in 1826. He commissioned Binnhill Tower in 1839.William Macdonald Mackenzie
-

Dictionary of Scottish Architects The Dictionary of Scottish Architects is a publicly available online database that provides biographical information about all architects known to have worked in Scotland between 1660 and 1980, and lists their works. Launched in 2006, it was comp ...

He died on 20 August 1842 and is buried in the family vault at Fowlis. File:Fowlis Castle.jpg, Fowlis Castle File:Kinfauns Castle (geograph 5611321).jpg,

File:Binnhill Tower (2) (geograph 5611335).jpg, Binnhill Tower

Family

In 1794 he married Mary Ann Johnston, daughter of Lt Col James Johnston. They had three daughters (one of whom, Jane Anne, was first wife of the soldier

Charles Philip de Ainslie General Charles Philip de Ainslie (18 March 1808 – 23 March 1889) was a British Army officer. Early life and education Ainslie was son of Colonel Charles Philip Ainslie, of the 4th Dragoons, and Mary Ann, daughter of James Atkinson, of Newcas ...

) and one son, John Gray, 15th Lord Gray who succeeded to the baronetcy.Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 107th ed., vol. 2, ed. Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 2003, pp. 1642-3

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gray, Francis 1765 births 1842 deaths Nobility from Edinburgh Politicians from Edinburgh Military personnel from Edinburgh Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellows of the Royal Society Lords Gray British Fencibles officers