Researching Charles Gray

Gray was born in London, England and moved to Canada, eventually settling in Winnipeg. In 1917, he joined the city's Board of Control,

He successfully sought election as mayor the next year. His first year as mayor was marked by the Winnipeg General Strike in which he replaced much of the police force with special constables in an effort to control the protests, ending with a violent confrontation with striking workers on 21 June 1919, known as "Bloody Saturday".

He was re-elected mayor in November 1919, getting more votes than his Labour opponent Seymour Farmer. presiding over a Citizen's Committee-dominated (anti-labour) city government. He did not run for re-election in 1920, the first city election held using Single Transferable Voting.

He moved to Ashland, British Columbia in 1941 and managed a salt mining operation there.

Gray was baptised in 1696, the only son of George Gray, a glazier and local landowner, and his wife Elizabeth. He was educated at Colchester Royal Grammar School from 1702, before possibly spending some time at Cambridge University and entering Gray's Inn to become a lawyer in 1724. He was called to the bar in 1729 and became a bencher in 1737. Finally, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1754. In 1726 he married Sarah Creffield, née Webster, the well-off widow of Ralph Creffield, and after her death in 1751, in 1755 Gray married Mary, the daughter of Randle Wilbraham, Member of Parliament for Newton, Lancashire.

Gray's political career was a long one; he served in five parliaments from 1742 to 1755 and 1761–1780, during the reigns of George II and George III. By the end of his term, however, Gray was too ill to attend, being, in 1780, "too infirm and too ill to stand". "A classical scholar as well as a reformer, he was one of the original trustees of the British Museum."

Locally, Gray is now most remembered for being given Colchester Castle as part of his marriage settlement, and subsequently making a number of efforts to preserve it for future generations. Likewise, he also purchased a great part of the surrounding land, which was, a hundred and fifty years later, given to the town to become Castle Park. In the castle itself he constructed the Italianate domed tower and the library, and founded in the latter, in 1750, the Castle Society Book Club: among the club's members was Philip Morant. The library was to contain the books of Samuel Harsnett, bequeathed to the town, and tended to and documented by Morant. He also roofed the castle in red tile, which survives. He was also responsible for management of a house, also part of his marriage settlement, which now forms Hollytrees museum, named after holly trees that Gray planted during his ownership of the building. The bulk of his estate was left to his friend James Round of Little Birch and his wife, Tamar, who was the daughter and heir of Gray's stepson, Peter Creffeild.

Gray was educated at the University of Glasgow before joining the British Diplomatic Service in 1974. After two years at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office he was posted to Warsaw in 1976. Gray served as Head of the Middle East Department between 2002 and 2004. He was invested as a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in 2003 for services in connection with the 2003 invasion of Iraq. From 2005 to 2008 Gray was British Ambassador to Morocco, before serving as Marshal of the Diplomatic Corps between 2008 and 2014. On 17 December 2013 he was invested as a Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order.