GREY, Rev. William (1819-1872), active in Newfoundland as an architect, artist, clergyman, missionary and educator, and where his name is associated with the design and construction of churches and related buildings for the Anglican sect in several towns and villages there. Grey was born in England on 27 October 1819 and studied at Oxford University from 1842 to 1845, and took a particular interest in ecclesiology and church architecture. In late 1848 he accompanied Edward Feild, Bishop of Newfoundland, on a tour of the colony and Bermuda, and the following year he was appointed diocesan architect in St. John's, Newfoundland, undertaking to design several small churches in local parishes. He also gave lectures to students and clergy on the merits of the Gothic Revival style, and he served as colonial correspondent for the Oxford Architectural Society.
In January 1853 he wrote a lengthy and informative article entitled “The Ecclesiology of Newfoundland” in which he outlined details of appropriate building techniques which were to be followed when constructing churches in the harsh maritime climate of Newfoundland. The article was later published in The Ecclesiologist [London], xiv, June 1853, pp. 156-61, where he described his own work of preparing “....designs for eight entire churches, and for additions to two existing churches” completed between 1850 and December 1852. This included his designs for additions and extensive remodeling of a church located “....on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia”. Grey left Newfoundland in 1853, but later returned to the colony in 1857 where he continued his activity as an architect, but his second trip there was brief, and he moved back to England in early 1858 and later retired from the clergy in 1865. Grey died in Exeter, England on 1 September 1872 (biog. Dictionary of Canadian Biography, x, 1972, 318-19; biog. and list of works in MacMillan Encyclopedia of Architects, 1982, vol. 2, p. 247-48; inf. Prof. Shane O'Dea, St. John's).
The Drawings Collection of Royal Inst. of British Architects, now located within the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, holds a series of original sketches for church buildings in Newfoundland which are signed “W. G. Arch't.” (R.I.B.A. Dwgs. Coll., Acc. Y17/9B). These churches, dating from 1849 to 1857, include several listed below:
PORTUGAL COVE, NFLD, St. Peter's Anglican Church, 1851-53; and adjacent parsonage, 1851; church now demol. (Newfoundland Quarterly [St. John's], ii, March 1903, 3, illus. & descrip.)
HERMITAGE, NFLD., St. Savior's Anglican Church, 1851-54; demol. 1959
ODERIN ISLAND, PLACENTIA BAY, NFLD., St. Michael's Anglican Church, 1854-55; demol.
BATTLE HARBOUR, NFLD., Anglican Church and parsonage, 1857 (Pierre du Prey, "Finding The 'Lost' Church of St. John The Baptist, Francis Harbour, Labrador", in Lucie Morisset, The Architecture of Identity, 2020, 168, 174, 179, illus. & descrip.)
FORTEAU, LABRADOR, St. Peter''s Anglican Church, 1857
TILT COVE, NFLD., Anglican Church, 1857-59
GREENSPOND, NFLD, St. Mathew The Apostle Anglican Church, 1857 (N. Winsor, Through Peril, Toil & Pain – The Story of the Church of England in Newfoundland, 1981, 44)
ST. JOHN'S, NFLD., Church of St. Mary The Virgin, located “...on the south side of St. John's”, 1857-59 (Decks Awash [St. John's], Jan./Feb. 1983, p 8, illus.)