His mother, Mary, a daughter of Dr. Brandreth of Houghton Regis, and the widow of Arthur Turner, would not allow her son to be sent to a public school, and he was educated by himself, a circumstance which engendered in him habits of isolation and restraint.
He was ordained by the Bishop of Norwich about 1811, and in the following year, by the favour of the Duke of Bedford, became the vicar of St Eustachius' Church, Tavistock and the perpetual curate of Brent Tor.
In 1822, he married Anna Eliza, the widow of Charles Alfred Stothard, and an amusing account of the habits of the worthy vicar and his wife is embodied in the latter's autobiography.
After Bray's death his widow collected and published his Poetical Remains (1859, 2 vols), and also A Selection from the Sermons, General and Occasional, of Rev.
Many extracts from his journals describing the curiosities of Dartmoor and many of his poems are inserted in his wife's A Description of the Part of Devonshire Bordering on the Tamar and the Tavy (1836).