In 1884 he was elected alderman of the St. Lawrence ward and soon afterward was unanimously chosen by the city council as chairman of the local board of health, serving in that difficult position during the whole of the disastrous epidemic of small-pox which devastated the city and province in 1885 and 1886. When the disease broke out and the death rate amounted to twenty-five per day, there was little civic organization to prevent the spread of disease or further the promotion of sanitary conditions. Vaccination was opposed, but Mr. Gray organized a vigorous campaign to stamp out the disease and obtained the passage of by-laws insisting on free and compulsory vaccination. He also organized a civic hospital and insisted on all the small-pox patients being sent to the isolation hospital. Through this and other emergency methods he allayed the general fear and stamped out the disease. It was in that year that he succeeded in getting a by-law through the city council requiring all household refuse to be cremated, and shortly afterward crematories were erected and a contract for five years’ collection and cremation given out.
After having served a three years’ term as alderman Mr. Gray declined reelection. He was appointed by the government a justice of the peace and a member of the council of public instruction for the province of Quebec and was elected to represent it on the corporation of the polytechnic school of this city. He was likewise a life governor of the Montreal General Hospital and the Notre Dame Hospital. When the public health act passed the legislature, shortly after the small-pox epidemic, Mr. Gray, who in addition to his aldermanic duties had been a member of the old central board of health for the province, was appointed a member of the new provincial board of health then created and remained a member until his death. In 1885 he was elected membre honoraire de la Société d’Hygiène Française of Paris, France. After his retirement from the city council he was requested by a number of leading citizens of all parties and creeds to accept the nomination of mayor, but owing to business reasons he was obliged to decline.
Mr. Gray married Miss Catherine Margaret McGale, the youngest daughter of the late Dr. Bernard McGale, who was a member of the army medical staff. Mr. Gray died February 18, 1908, and is survived by his wife, three daughters and a son, Dr. H. R. Dunstan Gray. The memory of his well spent life is cherished by all who were his contemporaries and his colleagues, and the worth of his work is recognized by all who know aught of the history of Montreal.