Irvine Gray

Irvine Gray was born on 4 April 1903[https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVZC-J9XZ Irvine Egerton Gray England and Wales Death Registration Index 1837–2007.] Family Search. Retrieved 28 April 2019. {{subscription required}} in Earls Court, London, to Charles Herbert Gray, an insurance clerk, and his wife Ada Maude Oliver.[https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X7PJ-YGR EGERTON England and Wales Census, 1911.] Family Search. Retrieved 28 April 2019. {{subscription required}}[https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/c/F35039 Gray, Irvine Egerton (1903–1992), archivist and antiquary.] National Archives. Retrieved 28 April 2019. He was educated at the private Ipswich School.Gray, Irvine. (1981) Antiquaries of Gloucestershire and Bristol. Bristol: Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society. pp. 7–15. {{ISBN|0900197145}} Belgian official records show him in Antwerp sometime between 1916 and 1930.[https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JS1X-QJX Irvin Egerton Gray Belgium, Antwerp Police Immigration Index, 1840–1930.] Family Search. Retrieved 28 April 2019. {{subscription required}}

He married Margaret M. Latto in London in 1935.[https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QV88-7W6D Irvine E Gray England and Wales Marriage Registration Index, 1837–2005.] Family Search. Retrieved 28 April 2019. {{subscription required}} The couple had three children, Faith (born 23 November 1937), Philippa (born 21 January 1940) and Oliver (born 7 September 1948).

In 1931, Gray produced a translation into English of Antoine de La Sale's Le Petit Jehan de Saintré under the title Little John of Saintré which was positively reviewed in History.[https://www.jstor.org/stable/24400538 "Reviewed Work(s): Little John of Saintré by Antoine de la Sale and Irvine Gray"], C. Johnson, History, New Series, Vol. 16, No. 63 (Oct. 1931), pp. 254–255. {{subscription required}} In 1935, his history of the General Accident insurance company was published under the title Business Epic 1885–1935.

He served in the British Army during the Second World War, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant on 14 October 1939United Kingdom and British Empire: {{London Gazette |issue=34709 |date=13 October 1939 |supp=y |page=6940 }} rising to the rank of major in the Intelligence Corps, and was awarded the MBE in King George VI's 1945 Birthday Honours.United Kingdom and British Empire: {{London Gazette |issue=37119 |date=14 June 1945 |supp=y |pages=2933–3032 }}

After the war, Gray was records officer for the Gloucestershire County Council{{cite book|author=Munby, Alan Noel Latimer.|title=The Dispersal of the Phillipps Library|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5uk8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA115|series=Phillipps Studies No. 5|year=1960|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|page=115}} and he began to write on the history of the county, producing a large number of articles and books, some edited, many of which were published by the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society or printed in their journal. His first local history book was a guide to county records for the Historical Association (1948), jointly with Frederick Emmison. He followed that with a history of his alma mater, Ipswich School, written with William Potter and published in 1950.

In 1951, he gave an account of his work at the Gloucestershire Record Office in which he described records received into their care that dated back to the medieval period and had been saved from wartime paper "salvage" drives or found in bank vaults or attics. Five sacks of records, covering 700 years, were retrieved from a damp potting-shed and found to include medieval deeds, court rolls, and a grant from King Henry II of 1152–1154.[http://www2.glos.ac.uk/bgas/tbgas/v070/bg070106.pdf "Some recent Discoveries in local Records"], Irvine Gray, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, Vol. 70 (1951), pp. 106–118. Other books and articles followed, his final publication being his collation of the Antiquaries of Gloucestershire and Bristol in 1981 that gave biographical profiles of 52 antiquarians of that county from William Worcester (1414–1480s) to Roland Austin (1874–1954). He was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

Gray died in Basingstoke, Hampshire, on 27 March 1992. His address at the time of his death was 24 Lloyd Square, London, WC1. He left an estate of less than £125,000.[https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/Calendar/GetImgSrc?filePath=%2F1992%2FG%2F003431_gray_1992.Png 1992 Probate Calendar.] p. 3426.

• Little John of Saintré = Le Petit Jehan de Saintré, by Antoine de La Sale; translated for the first time into English with an introduction by Irvine Gray. London: G. Routledge & Sons, 1931. (Broadway Medieval Library series)
• A Business Epic 1885–1935. Perth and London: General Accident Fire and Life Assurance Corporation, [1935].
• County Records. London: George Philip & Son, for the Historical Association, 1948; revised eds., London: Historical Association, 1961 & 1967. (With Frederick George Emmison)
• Ipswich School, 1400–1950. Ipswich: W. E. Harrison & Sons, 1950. (With William Edward Potter)
• Hyett, Francis Adams. Glimpses of the History of Painswick ... A New Edition with a Foreword by W. I. Groome. Gloucester: British Publishing Co., 1957. (Editor)
• The Registers of the Church of St. Mary, Dymock, 1538–1790: baptisms and burials 1538–1788; marriages 1538–1790. Bristol: Bristol & Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 1960. (Editor with John Eric Gethyn-Jones)
• Guide to the Parish Records of the City of Bristol and the County of Gloucester. Bristol: Bristol & Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 1963. (Editor with Elizabeth Ralph)
• Cheltenham Settlement Examinations, 1815–1826. Bristol: Bristol & Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 1969. (Editor)
• Antiquaries of Gloucestershire and Bristol. Bristol: Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 1981. {{ISBN|0900197145}}

Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society:[http://www.bgas.org.uk/code/contents.php?query=gray Search results.] Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 28 April 2019.

• [http://www2.glos.ac.uk/bgas/tbgas/v070/bg070106.pdf "Some Recent Discoveries in Local Records"], Vol. 70 (1951), pp. 106–118.
• [http://www2.glos.ac.uk/bgas/tbgas/v075/bg075116.pdf "Ralph Bigland and his Family"], Vol. 75, pp. 116–133.
• [http://www2.glos.ac.uk/bgas/tbgas/v081/bg081212.pdf "The Lysons Family"], Vol. 81, pp. 212–213.
• [http://www2.glos.ac.uk/bgas/tbgas/v082/bg082143.pdf "Some Early Records of Frocester"], Vol. 82, pp. 143–147.
• [http://www2.glos.ac.uk/bgas/tbgas/v084/bg084101.pdf "Some 17th-century Token-issuers"], Vol. 84, pp. 101–109.
• [http://www2.glos.ac.uk/bgas/tbgas/v087/bg087005.pdf "Gloucestershire Records: A Retrospect"], Vol. 87, pp. 5–13.
• [http://www2.glos.ac.uk/bgas/tbgas/v087/bg087209.pdf "The Sternhold Mystery"], Vol. 87, pp. 209–212.
• "A Berkeley Ransom", Vol. 88, pp. 213–215.
• [http://www2.glos.ac.uk/bgas/tbgas/v090/bg090158.pdf "Jemmy Wood's Journal"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111004205458/http://www2.glos.ac.uk/bgas/tbgas/v090/bg090158.pdf |date=4 October 2011 }}, Vol. 90, pp. 158–177.
• [http://www2.glos.ac.uk/bgas/tbgas/v092/bg092213.pdf "Shakespeare's Cousin, Thomas Greene"], Vol. 92, pp. 213–215.
• [http://www2.glos.ac.uk/bgas/tbgas/v097/bg097075.pdf "A Gloucestershire Postscript to the 'Domesday of Inclosures'"], Vol. 97, pp. 75–80.
• [http://www2.glos.ac.uk/bgas/tbgas/v097/bg097123.pdf "The Severn Bore"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061116032655/http://www.glos.ac.uk/bgas/tbgas/v097/bg097123.pdf |date=16 November 2006 }}, Vol. 97, pp. 123–126.
• [http://www2.glos.ac.uk/bgas/tbgas/v102/bg102155.pdf "Records of four Tewkesbury Vicars, c. 1685–1769"], Vol. 102, pp. 155–172.

Others:

• [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1586296 "The Making of Westbury Court Gardens"], Occasional Paper, Garden History Society, No. 1 (1969), pp. 15–18.

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Category:1903 births

Category:1992 deaths

Category:Historians of Gloucestershire

Category:People educated at Ipswich School

Category:English antiquarians

Category:Historians of Bristol

Category:Intelligence Corps officers

Category:British Army personnel of World War II

Category:Members of the Order of the British Empire

Category:English archivists

Category:English non-fiction writers

Category:Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London