Gray was born in
Walsall, but his family soon moved to London, where Gray studied medicine. He assisted his father in writing
The Natural Arrangement of British Plants (1821). After being
blackballed by the
Linnean Society of London, Gray shifted his interest from
botany to
zoology. During this period, he collaborated with
Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, the noted natural history artist, in producing
Gleanings from the Menagerie at Knowsley. The menagerie at
Knowsley Hall, near
Liverpool, founded by
Edward Smith-Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby, at the Stanley ancestral seat, was one of the largest private menageries in Victorian England. Gray married
Maria Emma Smith in 1826. She helped him with his scientific work, especially with her drawings. In 1833, Gray was a founder of what became the
Royal Entomological Society. Gray was a friend of
coleopterist Hamlet Clark, and in 1856–57 they sailed on Gray's yacht
Miranda to Spain, Algeria, and Brazil. Gray was an accomplished watercolourist, and his landscape paintings illustrate Clark's account of their journeys. During his 50 years employed at the British Museum, Gray wrote nearly 500 papers, including many descriptions of species new to science. These had been presented to the museum by collectors from around the world, and included all branches of zoology, although Gray usually left the descriptions of new birds to his younger brother and colleague George. Gray was also active in
malacology, the study of molluscs. He was an associate of entomologist
Eliza Fanny Staveley, supporting her research and reading papers she had prepared to the Linnean and Zoological Societies of London. John Edward Gray was buried at St Mary's Church,
Lewisham. ==Taxa named by him and in his honour==