Joseph Gray (1825-1893) was a master surgical instrument maker.   Between 1849 and 1860, he operated Gray & Lawson with Henry Lawson.  In 1860, Joseph Gray & Co was launched in Fitzwilliam Street.  In 1862, the firm won a Prize Medal at the International Exhibition in London for its surgical and obstetrics instruments.  The  Sheffield directory (1868) advertised Gray’s magneto-electric machine (for cases of suffocation) and stomach syringe.  Gray’s also manufactured enema apparatus and surgical, dental, and veterinary instruments.  In 1871, Truss Works in New George Street employed 14 men and four boys.  Joseph (who lived in Princess Street, Broomhall) specialised in dental forceps and was described as a ‘practical dentist’, who pulled teeth gratuitously for his numerous patients (Ironmonger, 24 August 1878).  

By 1879, the firm was styled Joseph Gray & Son, under Joseph and his son, William Edwards Gray (1856-1936).   By the 1890s, when W. E. Gray was the owner, the firm’s address was Truss Works, Boston Street, and it had agencies in Paris (where it won an exhibition medal in 1878) and New York.   Apparently, over a hundred hands were employed: ‘a special feature of this eminent firm is the fact that all their articles are hand-forged, the principals having always set their faces against machine-made goods for such delicate and important instruments’ (Men of the Period, 1896).

Joseph Gray retired to Southport, where he died at his residence in Palatine Road on 26 October 1893, aged 68.  He was buried in an unconsecrated grave in the General Cemetery.  He left £46,388.  His wife, Hannah, and son, Joseph Hardy Gray, had died in 1859.  Another son in the business, Joseph Pye Gray, retired to Seaholme, Marine Parade, Hythe, and died in London on 7 November 1905.  His burial was in another grave in the General Cemetery.  He was aged 41 and left £609.  William E. Gray continued to run the firm profitably after his father’s death.  In 1901, he was joined by his son, William Luscher Gray, who represented the third generation in the business.   William E. Gray lived at Rutland Park and was a prominent Freemason (Stokes & Iliffe, 1929¹).  He died on 13 October 1936, aged 79, and was buried at Ecclesall (leaving £60,405).  William L. Gray was then chairman of Truss Works and Star Works, Boston Street.   He died on 26 August 1965, aged 83, when the company was at the same address (Quality, September 1965).   He left £43,409.   In the following year, Gray’s was acquired by Downs Surgical in Sheffield.

^1. Stokes, J, and Iliffe, J W, Portraits in the Masonic Hall Sheffield (Sheffield, 1929)