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1831-1915
Early days
William was born in 1831 in Chesterton, Cambridge. His parents were David Wray and his wife Elizabeth Few.
David Wray was a surgeon, and the family lived in a fine house in Brunswick Place, Chesterton. William had two older sisters (Jane Ann and Mary Elizabeth) and an older brother (John Christopher). He also had three younger siblings (George, Harriett, and Foliot Sandford). William’s grandmother Mary Wray lived with them in the 1840s.
There had been some unwelcome publicity for the family after William’s grandfather (also named David, and also a surgeon) died in 1839, and his bigamous wife Elizabeth Stannard applied for Letters of Administration, representing herself as his widow:
Death of father
Tragedy struck the family in 1846 when William’s father David died at the age of 45.
1850s
The family were still in Chesterton at the time of the 1851 Census. Mother Elizabeth was a proprietor of houses, and the sons were learning trades. William was an apprentice builder and George was an apprentice cabinet maker.
Brother George died in 1852.
1860s
By the time of the 1861 Census, only William and his sister Jane were left living with their mother in Cambridge (at 28 Staffordshire Street). By this time William was a journeyman carpenter. Brother John had married Susannah Lockwood and was working in London as a lithographic writer; sister Mary had married accountant Joseph Bedford and was also in London, as were Foliot, a printer compositor, and Harriett who was working as a staymake’rs assistant.
First attack of mental illness
William was admitted to the Fulbourn asylum in Cambridge in May 1865 and remained there until the following September.
Death of mother
William’s mother Elizabeth died in 1868 leaving less than £100 in her estate.
1870s
By 1871 William had moved to London and was living in Templar Road, Hackney. He had a young lodger: Arthur Aimes, a 19 year old gardener from Norfolk.
William’s eldest sister Jane Ann Wray was admitted to the Bethlehem asylum in 1876 suffering from anxiety. Her medical notes record a family history of mental illness, in her brother and grandfather. She was to remain in the asylum system until her death at Banstead in 1902.
1880s
In 1881 William was one of a number of lodgers at 45 Lee Street in Shoreditch.
1890s
After the 1881 Census, we could find no further record of William until 1 November 1898 when he was admitted to Newington Workhouse. On this occasion his occupation was recorded as “sailor” rather than carpenter or joiner as in the other records we have for him. Presumably he had found work as a ship’s carpenter. He spent nearly 6 months in the workhouse before being discharged on 21 April 1899.
In early December 1899 William was admitted to Christ Church Workhouse in Southwark and remained there until January when he was removed to St Pancras. The register mentions his brother Foliot:
We do not know when William left St Pancras Workhouse.
Dementia
Later in 1900, in September, he was admitted to the workhouse at Hackney. Over the next 12 months he was admitted several times to Hackney Workhouse, and it was there, in August 1901, that he was judged to be of unsound mind and removed to Fisherton House Asylum in Wiltshire (the London County asylums being full at the time).
The Reception Order records that he was aged 70, a carpenter, and a widower (though we have found no record of a marriage).
“He is rambling and incoherent in his conversation; mutters to himself; and talks to imaginary persons; he has exalted ideas; imagines he is a great acrobat”
In April 1902 he was transferred to Horton asylum, where he died on 3 March 1915 from arteriosclerosis and senile decay. He was buried at Horton on 8 March in plot 1580b.
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