Billy Bray

After leaving school, Billy Bray worked as a miner in Cornwall and for seven years in Devon; during this time, he was a drunkard prone to riotous behavior.

[1] In 1823, he had a close escape from a mining accident and later said that he was converted in November of that year by reading John Bunyan's Visions of Heaven and Hell.

[a] He became attached to a group of Methodists known as the Bible Christians and became a well-known but unconventional preacher, his sermons being enlivened by spontaneous outbursts of singing and dancing.

[1][3] Bray died in 1868 and is buried at the Saint Michael and All Angels parish church in Baldhu, where a granite obelisk marks his grave.

[7] Bray's life was celebrated by the Devon folk songwriter Seth Lakeman in the song "Preacher's Ghost" on his 2010 album Hearts and Minds.