Thomas Bray (1656-1730) 15th February

Born in Shropshire and educated at Oxford, the Revd Thomas Bray held livings in Warwickshire until his first book of Catechetical Lectures made him so well known that the Bishop of London put his name forward in 1695 to the governor of Maryland, who had asked for a commissary. A constitutional problem caused a long delay before he could leave England, and he spent the time recruiting missionaries. But finding he could only recruit poor men who could not afford books, he made the provision of a library a condition of his serving in Maryland.

He developed this idea into one to provide deanery libraries throughout the church, and upwards of eighty were established in England and 39 in America before his death. This library scheme developed into the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

Bray finally got to Maryland in 1699, and remained until 1706, when it was felt better that he should return to England to promote a bill to support foreign missions. In 1701, he secured a charter from the king for the incorporation of a society to propagate the gospel in the plantations, the SPG (still surviving as USPG). Eight years later, he also saw an act passed 'for the better preservation of parochial libraries in England.'

In 1706, Bray accepted the living of St Botolph without Aldgate, where in addition to his parish work he wrote, worked for prisoners and campaigned for the Negro slaves in America until his death. A man 'without any extraordinary genius, and without special influence,' Bray had become the effective founder of our two oldest church societies.

Charles Plouviez