Edmund Dwyer Gray (Irish politician)

Edmund Dwyer Gray
Memorial portrait as published in the Weekly Freeman shortly after Gray's death
Born	(1845-12-29)29 December 1845 Dublin, Ireland
Died	27 March 1888(1888-03-27) (aged 42) Dublin, Ireland
Resting place	Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin
Nationality	Irish
Title	Lord Mayor of Dublin
Term	1880
Political party	Home Rule League
Children	Edmund Dwyer-Gray
Parent(s)	Sir John Gray, Anna Dwyer

Edmund Dwyer Gray (29 December 1845 – 27 March 1888) was an Irish newspaper proprietor, politician and MP in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. He was also Lord Mayor and later High Sheriff of the City of Dublin and became a strong supporter of Charles Stewart Parnell.

Gray was born on 29 December 1845 in Dublin, the second son of Sir John Gray and his wife Anna Dwyer. After receiving his education, he joined his father in managing the Freeman's Journal, the oldest nationalist newspaper in Ireland. When his father died in 1875, Gray took over proprietorship of the Journal, and his family's other newspaper properties such as the Belfast Morning News and the Dublin Evening Telegraph.

In 1868, Gray saved five people from drowning in a wrecked schooner at Killiney Bay, an action for which he received the Tayleur Fund Gold Medal for bravery from the Royal Humane Society. By coincidence, the rescue was witnessed by his future wife, Caroline Agnes, who he would meet shortly afterwards. Agnes was the daughter of Caroline Chisholm (an English humanitarian renowned for her work in female immigrant welfare in Australia), and although Gray was descended from a Protestant family, he converted to Catholicism to marry her in 1869. The couple had one son, Edmund Dwyer-Gray, who would take over from his father as proprietor of his newspapers and would go on to become Premier of Tasmania.