Born: 13 May 1848, United Kingdom
Died: 15 April 1927
Country most active: Ireland
Also known as: Carrie Chisholm
This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Felix M. Larkin. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Edmund Gray’s wife Caroline (‘Carrie’) Agnes Gray (1848–1927), was born 13 May 1848 in London, second daughter – the first, also named Caroline, had died in infancy – and sixth of eight children of Archibald Chisholm (1798–1877), captain (later major) in the East India Company army, and Caroline Chisholm (née Jones) (1808–77), the philanthropist celebrated for her work for female emigrants to Australia but caricatured as Mrs Jellyby in Dickens’s Bleak House. Throughout her husband’s political career, and notably when he was lord mayor of Dublin, Mrs Gray was an accomplished hostess. After his death, she controlled more than 40 per cent of the shares in the Freeman company. So, though playing no role in its day-to-day operations, she was able to exert considerable influence over the newspaper. When, at the outset of the Parnell split, the Freeman came out in favour of Parnell, it was with her full agreement. In the first months of the split, she was one of a group of prominent Dublin catholic women who rallied in support of Parnell. She even appeared in public with him in Dublin in early 1891, dressed – according to the archbishop of Dublin – in a scarlet cloak. The archbishop subsequently described Mrs Gray as ‘a rock of scandal’ (22 Feb. 1891, Kirby papers).
Her stance was consistent with her late husband’s reluctance in his latter years to oppose Parnell. However, once the anti-Parnellites launched their own daily newspaper, the National Press, in March 1891 and the Freeman began as a result to lose circulation and revenue, Mrs Gray wavered. Under the influence of her son (just returned from an extended visit to Australia, aged 21 and fearful for his inheritance), she resolved that the Freeman should abandon Parnell. This required a special general meeting of the Freeman company, held 21 September 1891, at which the pro-Parnell board was replaced with one that included both Mrs Gray’s son and the man soon to become her second husband, Capt. Maurice O’Conor. The Freeman and the National Press later merged (March 1892); the merger agreement provided that the National Press company should buy Mrs Gray’s Freeman shares for £36,000 and that the Freeman company should purchase the National Press newspaper, also for £36,000. Gray fils and his stepfather ceased to be directors of the merged company in 1893, ending the Gray family’s association with the Freeman which had lasted over fifty years.