William Trewartha Bray (1 June 1794 – 25 May 1868), known as Billy Bray, was an unconventional
Cornish preacher
A preacher is a person who delivers sermons or homilies on religious topics to an assembly of people. Less common are preachers who Open-air preaching, preach on the street, or those whose message is not necessarily religious, but who preach com ...
.
Biography
Billy Bray was born in 1794 in
Twelveheads
Twelveheads () is a hamlet east of St Day in west Cornwall, England, United Kingdom.Ordnance Survey ''One-inch Map of Great Britain; Truro and Falmouth, sheet 190''. 1961 It lies in the parish of Chacewater, between Truro and Redruth.
History ...
,
Cornwall
Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...
, England, UK. He was the eldest of three children born to William Bray, a miner, and his wife Ann, who came from
Gwennap
Gwennap () is a village and civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is about five miles (8 km) southeast of Redruth. Hamlets of Burncoose, Comford, Coombe, Gwennap, Coombe, Crofthandy, Cusgarne, Fernsplatt, Frogpool, Hick's M ...
. William Bray died when his children were young, and they were cared for by their grandfather, who was a pious
Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...
. After leaving school, Billy Bray worked as a miner in Cornwall and for seven years in Devon; during this time, he was a drunkard prone to riotous behavior. In 1821, he married Joanna, a lapsed Methodist, and they eventually had seven children.
In 1823, he had a close escape from a mining accident and later said that he was converted in November of that year by reading
John Bunyan
John Bunyan (; 1628 – 31 August 1688) was an English writer and preacher. He is best remembered as the author of the Christian allegory ''The Pilgrim's Progress'', which also became an influential literary model. In addition to ''The Pilgrim' ...
's ''Visions of Heaven and Hell''.
[Bourne (1872), p. 4, and Martin (2009). The book referred to as being by Bunyan is now known to have been written by the publisher George Larkin and was first published in 1711 under the title ''The world to come; or, The glories of heaven and the terrors of hell lively displayed under the similitude of a vision. "A prospect of heaven; A prospect of hell."'' See, for instance, ] He became attached to a group of Methodists known as the
Bible Christians and became a well-known but unconventional preacher, his sermons being enlivened by spontaneous outbursts of singing and dancing.
Bray did not restrict his activities to preaching, raising two orphans with his children, and generously giving help to other people. He also raised enough funds to build three new Methodist chapels, one in his home village of Twelveheads, one at
Carharrack, and one—nicknamed 'Three Eyes' chapel because of its three windows—at nearby
Kerley Downs.
Bray died in 1868 and is buried at the Saint Michael and All Angels parish church in
Baldhu, where a granite obelisk marks his grave. In 1984, the 'Three Eyes' chapel, the only one of the three he built that is still standing,
was dedicated to his memory.
Legacy
F. W. Bourne wrote a biography of Bray entitled ''The King's Son'' which, after its first publication in 1871, went through many editions under several titles for over a hundred years.
[A number of these editions and variant titles are listed in the Copac catalogu]
here
Several early editions of the work are available online, such a
this 25th edition (1887)
at the Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...
. According to this biography, one of Bray's favourite sayings, which he used when people complained about his enthusiastic singing and shouting, was
William James
William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher and psychologist. The first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States, he is considered to be one of the leading thinkers of the late 19th c ...
referred to Bray as "an excellent little illiterate English evangelist" in his ''
The Varieties of Religious Experience
''The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature'' is a book by Harvard University psychologist and philosopher William James. It comprises his edited Gifford Lectures on natural theology, which were delivered at the University of ...
'' published in 1902.
Annie Dillard
Annie Dillard (née Doak; born April 30, 1945) is an American author, best known for her narrative prose in both fiction and nonfiction. She has published works of poetry, essays, prose, and literary criticism, as well as two novels and one memo ...
refers to Bray in the last sentence of her 1974
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...
-winning ''Pilgrim at Tinker Creek''.
J I Packer, in
Knowing God
''Knowing God'' is a book by J. I. Packer, a British-born Canadian Christian theologian. It is his best-known work, having sold over 1,000,000 copies in North America alone. Originally written as a series of articles for the ''Evangelical Maga ...
, writes, "
John Owen and
John Calvin
John Calvin (; ; ; 10 July 150927 May 1564) was a French Christian theology, theologian, pastor and Protestant Reformers, reformer in Geneva during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of C ...
knew more theology than
John Bunyan
John Bunyan (; 1628 – 31 August 1688) was an English writer and preacher. He is best remembered as the author of the Christian allegory ''The Pilgrim's Progress'', which also became an influential literary model. In addition to ''The Pilgrim' ...
and Billy Bray, but who would deny that the latter pair knew their God every bit as well as the former?"
''Billy Bray in His Own Words'' by Chris Wright was published in 2004; it is based on the previously unpublished journal of Bray, written in his handwriting, that had lain untouched since the nineteenth century. Bray's life was celebrated by the
Devon
Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...
folk
Folk or Folks may refer to:
Sociology
*Nation
*People
* Folklore
** Folk art
** Folk dance
** Folk hero
** Folk horror
** Folk music
*** Folk metal
*** Folk punk
*** Folk rock
** Folk religion
* Folk taxonomy
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Fo ...
songwriter
A songwriter is a person who creates musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music genre and film scoring. ...
Seth Lakeman
Seth Bernard Lakeman (born 26 March 1977) is an English singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, who is most often associated with the fiddle and tenor guitar, but also plays the viola and banjo. Nominated for the 2005 Mercury Music Prize ...
in the song "Preacher's Ghost" on his 2010 album ''Hearts and Minds''.
Michael Bentley wrote a children's book about him, published in 2012.
Retired minister's debut children's book is a true story
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Notes
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bray, Billy
1794 births
1868 deaths
Converts to Methodism
Cornish Methodists
Cornish evangelicals
People from Chacewater