Thomas Gray

Born: February 14, 1803, Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, Massachusetts.
Died: March 6, 1849, Boston, Massachusetts.

Gray, Thomas, jun., M.D., was b. at Jamaica Plain Roxbury, Massachusetts, Feb. 4, 1803, and educated at Harvard College, where he graduated in 1823. After visiting England and the Continent ho took his M.D. in 1827, and commenced the practice of medicine in Boston, U.S.A. He subsequently exchanged the practice of medicine for that of chemistry. He died in Boston, March 6, 1849. His hymns were mainly written for children, and for occasional services. They are of more than ordinary merit, and are much used by the Unitarians, of which body Dr. Gray was a member. They include:—
1. Good-night, good-night, our song is said. Evening. Popular with children.
2. Jehovah! at Thine awful throne. Ordination.
“Written for the Ordination of Mr. George Whitney as Pastor of the Second Church and Society in Roxbury, June 15,1831."
3. Our Father, here again we raise. Morning. In Gray's Sunday School Collection, 1833.
4. Suppliant, lo! Thy children bend. Prayer. Also in Gray's Sunday School Collection, 1833.
5. We come in childhood's innocence. Opening of a Sunday School. Given in Gray's Sunday School Collection, 1844.
6. While round Thy throne, 0 God, we bend. Anniversary of Sunday School “Written for the Jubilee of the Boston Sunday School Society, at the Federal Street Church, Sept. 14, 1831." It was given in Gray's Collection, 1833.
For these details we are indebted to Putnam's Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith, 1874, pp. 171-176.

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology