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The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Gray, His Honour Moses Wilson

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1385650The Dictionary of Australasian Biography — Gray, His Honour Moses WilsonPhilip Mennell

Gray, His Honour Moses Wilson, was the son of the late John Gray, of Claremorris, county Mayo, Ireland, and Elizabeth his wife, only child of George Wilson, and was brother of the late Sir John Gray, one of the proprietors of the Dublin Freeman's Journal. He was a barrister, and emigrated to Victoria in 1856, where he took an active part in the solution of the land question on liberal lines, and was one of the founders of the Victoria Land League, under whose auspices was summoned a great assemblage of delegates from all parts of Victoria to discuss the land question with a view to promoting the settlement of a farming population on the public estate. The Land Convention, as it was called, met in Melbourne in 1857, and condemned the abortive Haines Land Bill then passing through the Lower House. Mr. Wilson Gray was elected the president of the Convention, which also passed resolutions in favour of manhood suffrage, equal electoral districts, abolition of property qualification, and payment of representatives. He was M.L.A. for Rodney 1860 to 1862, when he went to Otago, New Zealand, where he died a district court judge April 4th, 1875.