Poet. David Gray received notoriety as a Scottish poet in the nineteenth century, who died at the very dawn of his career. His 1,000-line poem "The Luggie" is the piece that he is most recognized as authoring. Born the oldest of eight children of a handloom weaver, David Gray and Ann Cluggie, his parents were resolved to educate him for the Free Kirk, an evangelical Presbyterian church that withdrew from the Church of Scotland. A tall, thin young man with dark eyes, Gray had no desire for the pulpit. Through his parents self-denial and his own exertions working as a pupil-teacher and private tutor, he was able to complete a course of four sessions at the University of Glasgow. He wrote under the pen name of Will Garvey in the "Poet's Corner" of the newspaper, "Glasgow Evening Citizen." He began his idyll on "The Luggie," a poem about his childhood near the little stream that ran through Merkland. With his close literary colleague " Robert Buchanan, he decided to leave Scotland in May of 1860 to seek literary employment in London. Shortly after his arrival in London, he sought eagerly fellow-poet " Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton, with whom he had previously corresponded in an attempt to have his pieces published. Lord Houghton tried to persuade him to return to Scotland to become a minister as the competition for writers in London was indeed tough, but Gray insisted on staying in London. Milnes was a member of the Royal Society and had numerous connections with publishers and others authors that could provide Gray with help. Even with corrections and editing, his poem "The Luggie," was not published in the "Cornhill Magazine" as planned but Milnes found him some light literary work as a source of income. He had poor lodging, even sleeping on a bench in Hyde Park a night or two, and little food at this point. Milnes compared Grey as a "youthful Shelley." By this time, his health declined with a serious fever and respiratory problems, which could been pneumonia or tuberculosis. He left the cold, damp of London for a springtime stay of recuperation at a hospital in Torquay at the expense of Milnes. While there he wrote a 4-page letter "to Sutherland" giving the details of all the publishers and authors that he had submitted his poem and been rejected. As his lung disease made rapid progress and depression from rejection came, an irresistible longing seized Gray to return to Merkland, arriving in January of 1861. The entire year, his health was continuing to fail, yet he continued to try to get his poem published. The day before his December of 1861 death, he had the gratification of seeing part of his poem "The Luggie" published. The entire poem was published post-humorously in "The Luggie: and Other Poems" with a long introduction by Lord Houghton and pages of memoirs by Dr. " James Heddwerwick, the owner of the "Glasgow Evening Citizen," dated March of 1862. The book was released in the United States in 1866. Besides "The Luggie," a 33-page poem, "In the Shadows," and a collection of sonnets and poems without names were in this book. The book is still available in print and digital. Robert Buchanan published his biography, "The Story of David Gray" in 1900. Besides the book, Buchanan wrote two poems in the honor of Gray, "David In Heaven" and "The Poet." Another biography is "David Gray, the Poet of Luggie" which was written by A. V. Stuart in 1961. Literary friends erected a monument at his grave site in 1864 with the epitaph written by Lord Houghton. A quote from his poem "First in a Series" written while in Torquay dated May 4, 1861: "Enter scared mortal! And in awe behold, The chancel of a dying poet's mind."