Mexborough & Swinton Times, April 8, 1932
Conisborough.
Mr. Herbert Henry Wray, elected for the North Ward, is a Yorkshireman, born at Barnsley, of which borough his father, the late Mr. Charles Wray, was a freeman and several times mayor. He was reared in the tradition of public service and has been closely interested in public affairs for many years, though this is his first success with the electors.
He came to Denaby in 1895, and for over thirty years was in business as a pawnbroker and clothier. He retired a few years ago but retained a small drapery shop, and in virtue of this is the oldest tradesman in Denaby. He lived for a time at Conisborough and at Doncaster, but he has been a resident of what is now the North Ward for over twenty-five years. He served on the old Conisborough Parish Council but failed to secure election to the Urban District Council when it was formed in 1920. He contested the North Ward and was first “out,” Mr. H. C. Harrison, Mr. R. Williamson, and Mr. T. Oxley being elected. Since then he has contested, always in the North Ward, on seven or eight occasions. His opponent has always been a member of the Labour party, and yet his own politics approximate closely to those of the Labour party.
He does not recognise party politics at all in local government, and claims the right to act and vote according to his conscience without reference to party caucuses. There will be no more sturdily independent member of the Council.
He is a member of the Society of Friends and has been a governor of Ackworth School and a director of the Friends’ Retreat at York. Mrs. Wray is also deeply interested in public affairs, and is a useful co-opted member of a number of County Council committees dealing with tuberculosis and mental deficiency; she is also a governor of the Wath Secondary School.