Robert Gray, the son of a London, England silversmith, was educated at Eton College and St. Mary Hall, Oxford, earning several degrees between the 1780s and 1802. He publishd several works, including sermons and A Key to the Old Testament and Apocrypha (1790), which became a textbook for both Oxford and Cambridge Universities.

Gray held a variety of roles in the Anglican church, including as vicar at Faringdon, Berkshire and rector at Crayke, Yorkshire and then at Bishopwearmouth. In 1827 he was elevated to Bishop of Bristol, and he put into practice a variety of programs as bishop, including in church building and relief for the poor.

Politically, Gray was opposed to Catholic emancipation and parliamentary reform. In 1831, during riots in Bristol after the Reform Bill was defeated, Gray's palace was burned, his library stolen or destroyed, and his wine cellars plundered.

Gray married Elizabeth (1769 or 1770-1841) in 1794, and they had a large family. Robert Gray died in September 1834 and was buried at the cemetery attached to Bristol Cathedral.

[Information retrieved from Blacker, B.H., revised by M.E. Clayton, "Gray, Robert," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.]