Edward Meeks Gregory was born the fifth of seven children of Constance Adela (née Heath) Gregory (1890–1982) and George Craghead Gregory (1887–1956) at "Granite Hall", the family estate in northwestern Chesterfield County, Virginia, on September 30, 1922. His father was a prominent attorney, businessman and historian.
He held the first gay marriage ceremony in Virginia at Saint Peter"s Church in Richmond in August 1978. He became an Episcopal priest in Richmond, Virginia. During the era of Massive Resistance and the desegregation crisis post-Brown v.
Board of Education in Virginia, when Prince Edward County’s public schools were closed, Gregory raised money for black students to attend private schools from 1959 to 1964.
He conducted the first gay marriage ceremony in Virginia at Saint Peter"s Church in Richmond in August 1978. In 1979, while serving on Richmond"’s Human Relations Commission, Gregory became a big proponent, albeit unsuccessfully, of adding sexual orientation to the city code"s nondiscrimination policies.
He served as president of the Richmond-St. Petersburg Council on Human Relations and the Richmond Area Council on Human Relations. He died in 1995. His tombstone in Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery bears the Latin inscription Pontificeamus (“Let us build bridges”).
The annual Edward Meeks Gregory Service Award at Christ Church School is given to a worthy student each year.
The Reverend Edward Meeks Gregory Papers are open for research at James Branch Cabell Library of Virginia Commonwealth University.
