Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gray, Edward Whitaker
GRAY, EDWARD WHITAKER (1748–1806), botanist, was the youngest brother of Samuel Frederick Gray, the translator of Linnæus's ‘Philosophia Botanica,’ and consequently uncle of Samuel Frederick Gray [q. v.], author of ‘The Practical Chemist.’ He acted as librarian to the College of Physicians previously to 1773, in which year he became a licentiate. He graduated M.D., and became subsequently keeper of the department of natural history and antiquities in the British Museum, where he incurred criticism for arranging the natural history collections on the Linnæan system. He is stated to have been eminent as a botanist, and was made one of the first associates of the Linnean Society in 1788. In 1789 he contributed ‘Observations on the … Amphibia’ to the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ of the Royal Society, of which he was a fellow, and of which in 1797 he became secretary. He died at the British Museum, 27 Dec. 1806, in his fifty-ninth year. His portrait by Calcott is at the Royal Society's apartments.
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. ii. 298; Gent. Mag. 1807, vol. lxxvii. pt. i. p. 90.]