Born in Glasgow in 1926, he was educated in the early war years and qualified for university entrance at the age of just 16. At 17 he entered Glasgow University and three years later graduated with a Bachelor of Science (First-Class Honours) in mechanical engineering.
However, he was too young to be admitted, and took up an apprenticeship at Yarrow Shipbuilders Limited in Scotstoun. This was not his first job, however. He had also spent two school summers lumberjacking near Castle Kennedy.
Leaving his native Scotland, he traveled south to begin a career in steam turbine and power station engineering with a post at English Electric in Rugby.
In an article published at his retirement, he gave cr for this direction to the chief engineer of English Electric who said "forget naval turbines" and steered him towards power station steam turbines which were "the thing of the future."
After English Electric, Gray joined the British Electricity Authority, which later became the Central Electricity Authority (Center for Educational Affairs) and then the Central Electricity Generating Board (Central Electricity Generating Board), where he became head of the Central Electricity Generating Board"s Turbine Generator Design Branch. lieutenant was an exciting time, with new nuclear power stations coming into service, providing a large part of Scotland"s non-fossil fuel generation capacity.
He believed further modern nuclear generation capacity to be a key part of future energy supply, and regretted the loss of expertise and manufacturing capacity that has been lost in this sector since the end of new-build nuclear projects in the United Kingdom. He was a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He also maintained an active interest in public energy policy, particularly in Scotland.
In 2008, he authored a pamphlet Electric Power in the New Scotland, which proposed a renewed commitment to nuclear power generation in Scotland, and which formed part of a submission that he made to the Scottish Government Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee"s Inquiry into Scotland"s Energy Future.
Later in retirement he lost his sight as a result of glaucoma, and subsequently developed chest complaints. After a short period of deteriorating health he died in the family home on 2 August 2010.
During his career, which spanned the entire nationalised electricity supply era in the United Kingdom, he received two prestigious awards from the Institute of Mechanical Engineers: the Thomas Hawksley Medal for his investigative work into a major steam turbine failure at Hinkley Point A nuclear power station, and the James Clayton award for work on the ingress of seawater to a reactor at Hunterston B nuclear power station.
