Joseph Gray (6 June 1890 - 1 May 1963) was a Durham-born painter and etcher of landscapes, architectural subjects and battlefield scenes. Some of his most evocative work hangs in the Imperial War Museum and different Regimental Museums throughout Britain. Early life Joseph Gray was born at South Shields, Tyne and Wear, Durham on 6 June 1890. The son of master mariner Joseph Gray, he trained as a sea-going engineer before attending South Shields Art School. He travelled extensively – to Spain, France, Germany and Russia – gathering material for his drawings, before settling in Dundee by about 1912, to work as an illustrator for the Dundee Courier and other publications. World War One Gray joined the 4th (Dundee) Battalion, the Black Watch Regiment, after the outbreak of World War One and fought with them from August 1914 to March 1916, in the battles of Neuve Chapelle, Festubert and Loos. There were a number of journalists who joined the 4th Battalion in the early stages of the war and they referred to themselves as ‘Fighter-Writers'. Once he reached the trenches, Gray’s talents as a draughtsman were quickly recognised. He was appointed an observer, a role which involved many expeditions into the firing line to make sketches of enemy positions. He was also called upon to duplicate trench maps, as he did before the Battle of Festubert, marking out the positions of the men of his battalion. During 1915-1916 Gray sent back many reports to the Dundee Courier but was eventually invalided out of service in March 1916. Back home he was appointed official war artist at The Graphic illustrated newspaper and contributed drawings and articles about different aspects of trench life. All his drawings were based on original sketches made during his time in the firing line. In 1916 he married Agnes Mary Dye and moved to Barnhill. They had one daughter, Alice Maureen, born in June 1919. Gray wrote The History of the 4th Black Watch, published in instalments in the Dundee Advertiser between December 1917 and January 1918. A stickler for accuracy, he worked from his own recollections and other eyewitness testimonies, intending it as both a history and a tribute to the men with whom he had served. “Although many hundreds of gallant men from this corner of Scotland have found their way into other regiments and other services, it is the Fourth Black Watch that essentially