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New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4383, 7 April 1875, Page 2

A telegram from Dunedin, in another column, reports that the remains of the late Mr. Wilson Gray, District Judge of Otago, were interred there yesterday with many public marks of the appreciation in which the decased was held. His death, literally in harness—his last judgments delivered from the bench in the last hours of his official as well as his mortal life, for he had retired, and a few hours would have seen him a private citizen —was tragic in a high degree. We have no doubt that the sorrow evinced as his remains passed through the streets to their last restingplace, was thoroughly sincere. Mr. Wilson Gray was a man in whom “self” had no part. A thorough scholar, a sound lawyer, a simple-hearted unambitious man, he lived a simple life, and died—as he desired to do—in the discharge of the duties to perform which lie had been called. A less wordly soul never parted from earthly clay. Mr. Wilson Gray was unobtrusive, and therefore but little known. He was a brother of Sir John Gray, the proprietor of “ The Nation ” newspaper—that well known Dublin newspaper in which Sir Charles Gay an Doffy, “ Meagher of the Sword,” and the late John Mitchell (“vitriol Mitchell”) made themselves famous in connection with the Young Ireland movement. In Victoria Mr. Wilson Gray was a prominent member of the Convention, the first political league formed in that colony for the purpose of securing popular rights. He was elected member of the House of Representatives for the district of Rodney, and was for some years an active spirit in the Land League of Victoria. His distrust of his own abilities induced him on more than one occasion to refuse office, and at length, in the first Otago rush, ho left Melbourne for Dunedin. “As honest as Wilson Gray” had become all but a proverb in Victoria.