Lieutenant-General Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on the battlefield, who was normall ...

Henry Wray (1 January 1826 – 6 April 1900) was a

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is the engineering arm of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces ...

officer who arrived in

Fremantle Fremantle () () is a port city in Western Australia located at the mouth of the Swan River (Western Australia), Swan River in the metropolitan area of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth. The Western Australi ...

on 12 December 1851 and was responsible for carrying out the construction plans for

Fremantle Prison Fremantle Prison, sometimes referred to as Fremantle Gaol or Fremantle Jail, is a former Australian prison and World Heritage Site in Fremantle, Western Australia. The site includes the prison cellblocks, gatehouse, perimeter walls, cottages, ...

for

Edmund Henderson Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Edmund Yeamans Walcott Henderson (19 April 1821 – 8 December 1896) was an officer in the British Army who was Comptroller-General of Convicts in Western Australia from 1850 to 1863, Home Office Surveyor-General of Pr ...

Military career

Henry Wray was born in

Demerara Demerara (; , ) is a historical region in the Guianas, on the north coast of South America, now part of the country of Guyana. It was a colony of the Dutch West India Company between 1745 and 1792 and a colony of the Dutch state from 1792 unti ...

, now

Guyana Guyana, officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern coast of South America, part of the historic British West Indies. entry "Guyana" Georgetown, Guyana, Georgetown is the capital of Guyana and is also the co ...

on 1 January 1826. The son of

Charles Wray Charles Wray (c. 1786 – 2 October 1836) was Chief Justice of Guyana for fourteen years from 1821 to 1835, having been a barrister in England. Wray was the son of Colonel John Wray, of Park Place, St James's, formerly of Hull, and the brother of ...

, Chief Justice of Demerara, Wray graduated from the

Royal Military Academy at Woolwich The Royal Military Academy (RMA) at Woolwich, in south-east London, was a British Army military academy for the training of commissioned officers of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers. It later also trained officers of the Royal Corps of Si ...

as second lieutenant in 1843. Postings in

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

and

Gibraltar Gibraltar ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory and British overseas cities, city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the A ...

followed, and Wray's abilities as an

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

soon saw him promoted to first lieutenant in 1846. Married in 1848 to Mary Drinkwater, the daughter of eminent historian Thomas Drinkwater, Wray then moved back to Woolwich in 1850. In 1851 he was selected to travel to

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

with the 20th Company of Royal Sappers and Miners. After arrival he was appointed as a

magistrate The term magistrate is used in a variety of systems of governments and laws to refer to a civilian officer who administers the law. In ancient Rome, a '' magistratus'' was one of the highest ranking government officers, and possessed both judi ...

to the colony, and given responsibility for the construction of the Convict Establishment (now

), based upon designs by

. Wray personally designed many buildings, bridges and roads in the

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

area, and in April 1854 was promoted to rank of Second Captain. Around this time The Royal Engineers left to serve in the

Crimean War The Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the Second French Empire, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861), Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont fro ...

, but Wray remained and was promoted to First Captain. After Henderson's departure in 1856, Wray succeeded him as acting comptroller general of convicts. After serving in the position for two years, he was described in a letter from the

governor of Western Australia The governor of Western Australia is the representative in Western Australia of the monarch, King Charles III. As with the other governors of the Australian states, the governor of Western Australia performs constitutional, ceremonial and commun ...

Arthur Edward Kennedy Sir Arthur Edward Kennedy (; 5 April 1809 – 3 June 1883) was a British colonial administrator who served as governor of a number of British colonies, namely Sierra Leone, Western Australia, Vancouver Island, Hong Kong and Queensland. Early ...

as "a most exemplary and industrious officer who has for many months done the work of several". Henry Wray left Australia on 2 January 1858 to return to England. In 1860 he was commissioned to help determine the boundary between

British Honduras British Honduras was a Crown colony on the east coast of Central America — specifically located on the southern edge of the Yucatan Peninsula from 1783 to 1964, then a self-governing colony — renamed Belize from June 1973

(

Belize Belize is a country on the north-eastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a maritime boundary with Honduras to the southeast. P ...

) and

Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...

. This was a difficult undertaking that saw him injured several times by both nature and natives. By this time he had been promoted to the local rank of major. After the signing of the

Anglo-Japanese Friendship Treaty The was the first treaty between the United Kingdom and Japan, then under the administration of the Tokugawa shogunate. Signed on October 14, 1854, it paralleled the Convention of Kanagawa, a similar agreement between Japan and the United States s ...

, he was then posted to

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

with a company of

sapper A sapper, also called a combat engineer, is a combatant or soldier who performs a variety of military engineering duties, such as breaching fortifications, demolitions, bridge-building, laying or clearing minefields, preparing field defenses ...

s. Wray returned to England in 1865 becoming chief royal engineer at Chatham. He published several works on engineering that were to reform teaching methods in the field. After several years he became chief royal engineer in

Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...

, and was involved in several military and civil engineering projects before moving to

in 1879 for 7 years. Promoted to major-general on 26 April 1882, Wray became

Lieutenant Governor of Jersey The lieutenant governor of Jersey (Jèrriais:, "Governor of Jersey"), properly styled the lieutenant-governor of Jersey (), is the representative of the British monarch in the Bailiwick of Jersey, a dependency of the British Crown. Presentl ...

until his retirement in 1887. He died from

pneumonia Pneumonia is an Inflammation, inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as Pulmonary alveolus, alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of Cough#Classification, productive or dry cough, ches ...

Bournemouth Bournemouth ( ) is a coastal resort town in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole unitary authority area, in the ceremonial county of Dorset, England. At the 2021 census, the built-up area had a population of 196,455, making it the largest ...

on 6 April 1900, aged 74.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wray, Henry 1826 births 1900 deaths Graduates of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich Convictism in Western Australia British Army lieutenant generals Governors of Jersey Royal Engineers officers Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George