Edwin Gray (July 18, 1743 – before June 1790) was a lawyer, planter, patriot and politician from Southampton County who represented the county in the House of Burgesses, Virginia Revolutionary conventions, Virginia House of Delegates and Virginia Senate.^[1]

Born in Southampton County, Virginia, the son of burgess Joseph Gray and his wife (whose name has not survived), Gray received a private education suitable to his class before traveling to Williamsburg to attend the College of William & Mary.^[2] He had a younger brother, James Gray (1746-before October 1800) who served as a captain during the Revolutionary War, was wounded at the Battle of Germantown and married Elizabeth Grizzie Cowper.^[3]

After his father's death, Southampton County voters elected Gray and Henry Taylor (1737-1781) as their representatives to the House of Burgesses in 1769, and re-elected the pair each term until Virginia's last colonial governor, Lord Dunmore, suspended the legislature and Virginia declared its independence in 1776.^[4] Voters also elected the pair as their representative to all five Revolutionary Conventions, and the first session of the Virginia House of Delegates in 1776.^[5] Richard Kello replaced Gray as a delegate in 1777 because Gray won election to the Virginia Senate, representing Southampton and nearby Dinwiddie and Sussex Counties, and he served until the 1779, session, when he and George Brooke of relatively distant Essex County were both disqualified (possibly because he was also elected to the House of Delegates in that session, but more likely for election improprieties since David Mason was elected as that district's senator.^[6] Beginning in 1787, either Southampton voters again returned him to the House of Delegates, or elected him son of the smae name. and although he did not win re-election immediately, he was again elected three times before dying after the 1788 legislative session (1776, 1779, 1787, 1788) and, whereupon his son of the same name succeeded him in 1791 and a member of the Virginia State Senate from 1777 to 1779. Gray was elected a Democratic-Republican to the United States House of Representatives in 1798, serving from 1799 to 1813. He was unsuccessful in an 1815 bid for the seat.

Both Edwin Gray and his brother James operated plantations using enslaved labor.^[7]

Gray married Juliana Godwin, who bore at least four sons who survived this man (Joseph who died about 1798, Thomas who married Anne Cocke Browne and died age 75 in 1831, Edwin who as mentioned below continued his father's political legacy, and Henry Mills Gray who was still underage so his elder brother Edwin became his guardian in 1796), as well as a daughter, Mary, who married Daniel Simmons.^[8]

Gray wrote his last will and testament written on September 3, 1788 was admittted to probate in Southampton County in June 1790, with his widow, Juliann Godwin appointed as his administrator. However she died by April 15, 1796, when their third son, Edwin, was granted administration of her estate.^[9]

His son, also Edmwin Gray, succeeded him as one of Southampton County's delegates in Richmond, and then won election and re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives, serving from 1799 until 1813. Edwin Gray Jr. died in Nansemond County, Virginia about 1817.^[10]

• United States Congress. "Edwin Gray (id: G000394)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.

• United States Congress. "Edwin Gray (id: G000394)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.