John Jefferson Bray

Bray's publications reflected his interests, which he listed as "poetry, history, classics". As author, these included: • Poems (Melbourne, Cheshire Press, 1962) • Poems 1961-1971 (Brisbane, Jacaranda Press, 1972) • Poems 1972-1979 (1979) • Bay of Salamis and other Poems (1986) • Satura: Selected Poetry and Prose (1988) • Seventy Seven (Adelaide, Wakefield Press, 1990) He co-edited No. 7 Friendly Street Poetry Reader (1983) with Jan Owen. He wrote two plays: • Papinian (performed 1955) • The Women of Troy (performed 1966) He also made contributions to: • Well and Truly Tried (1982), a festschrift for Sir Richard Eggleston • Adelaide Law School Centenary Essays (1983) • Australian Law Journal

Bray was an active member of the Libraries Board of South Australia between 1944 and 1989, the longest-serving Libraries Board member until that point. After he retired, the State Library of South Australia named its reference section as the Bray Reference Library, a name given to a suite of rooms when the library was redeveloped in 2001. He was vice-president of the South Australian branch of the Fellowship of Australian Writers, and was closely involved with the organisation of the first three Festival of Arts Writers' Weeks (1960, 1962, 1964), with his first volume of poetry launched at the second Writers' Week in 1962. He was at the inaugural meeting of Friendly Street Poets, and remained an active member and contributor to the society's annual anthologies, the Friendly Street Reader. The Satura Prize is a poetry prize funded by a bequest from his estate and awarded by Friendly Streets. Bray's first book of poetry was published in 1962.

Bray was made a Companion of the Order of Australia in 1979, and is said, by his younger brother, Dr Robert Stow Bray, to have refused a knighthood. He described his views as "æsthetic - traditional; social - emancipated; political - fluctuating" and his philosophies as "sceptical, some tendencies to Platonism". He was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1991. • Illustration — "Address to the pigeons in Hurtle Square", a poem by Bray, features on the western face of the John Jefferson Bray Memorial Fountain in Hurtle Square, Adelaide, where he once lived. The John Bray Poetry Award, awarded biennially since 1986 as part of the Adelaide Festival, was so named to honour his distinguished services to Australian poetry. The John Jefferson Bray Memorial in Hurtle Square, Adelaide, was commissioned by the Adelaide City Council in 1994. Bray died on 26 June 1995 in Adelaide. There is a bronze bust of Bray, sculpted by local sculptor John Dowie, in the State Library.