2nd Lieutenant John Harold GRAY
Royal Flying Corps

Date of birth: 24th March 1899
Date of death: 22nd May 1958

Died aged 59
Unknown
John Harold Gray was born at 9 Porchester Square, Paddington in London on the 24th of March 1899 the only son of Charles Harold Gray, a stock jobber, and Ada Leila (nee Wilson) Gray later of 22 Ladbroke Grove, and of 9 Rochester Square in Paddington and of Leigh House, Birmingham Road, Litchfield in Staffordshire. He was christened at Christ Church, Lancaster Gate on the 14th of May 1899.

He was educated at Hazelwood School until December 1912 where he was a member of the Choir. On leaving the school the magazine wrote the following of him: - "...has left for Wellington. This is losing a very old friend, as he lived close to us before joining the school, and we shall miss him very much indeed. He made excellent use of his time at Hazelwood, and was very keen about everything, though not endowed with the necessary physical strength for excelling in the field. An enthusiastic and capable leader of the choir. Bonne chance."

He went on to Wellington College where he was in Lynedoch’s House from January 1913 to the 5th of April 1916. He served as a Private in the Officer Training Corps from September 1913 to April 1916.

In early 1917 he was granted a cadetship and went to the Flying School (Officer Cadets Battalion) at Denham. He suffered two bouts of pneumonia in 1918 and was in hospital until January 1919. He was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant from Observer on the 3rd of January 1919 and was granted a three year regular commission in the Royal Air Force but was limited to administrative work due to ill health, being laid up in a Cairo Hospital with internal ulcers in 1923.

He left for Australia from London on the 4th of July 1924 on board the SS "Mongolia" by which time he had resigned his commission.

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