Gray, EB

Lieutenant Eric Balfour Gray

Eric was born on August 16th 1887, the third child of Thomas Gray, a merchant in the East India Company, and his wife, Constance. He joined the College from the Prep in the summer of 1900, a path his elder brother, Noel, had taken two years earlier. After five years at Dulwich he left in 1905, and went on to work for Mullens, Marshall & Co., a stockbroking firm based in the City. He was also a highly active figure in OA sports, serving as Honorary Treasurer of the Gymnastics Club between 1908 and 1911, and was Captain of the rugby ‘B’ XV in the 1913-14 season.
By this point Eric was already a member of the armed forces, having joined the Artists Rifles several years earlier, and was mobilised upon the outbreak of war in August 1914. Having spent over a year in England, in the autumn of 1915 he applied for, and was granted, a commission in the Royal Garrison Artillery. It took another year, until October of 1916, for him to be sent to France for the first time, as a member of the 192nd Heavy Battery. He was only at the front for around six months, but during this period suffered greatly, and was invalided home in order to have an operation on a bout of peritonitis during April 1917, being promoted to Lieutenant shortly afterwards whilst still in hospital. Unfortunately, however, he never regained sufficient health to resume his duties, being discharged from the army that November and ultimately passing away in hospital in Dorset on December 20th 1917, at the age of 30.