A country rector, Bray was chosen in 1696 by the bishop of London to provide ecclesiastical assistance in the Maryland colony, where he lived for several months in 1700, but he worked for the most part in England and corresponded with the colony.
Bray’s founded the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge (SPCK) in 1698. On his return to England, Bray founded the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) in 1701 as a separate society for foreign missions.
In 1706 Bray was appointed Vicar of St Botolph Without, Aldgate, where he ministered until his death in 1730 at the age of 74. He served the parish with energy and devotion, while continuing his efforts on behalf of African slaves in America and in the founding of parochial libraries. Before his death he had been instrumental in the establishment of some eighty parochial libraries.
When the deplorable condition of English prisons was brought to his attention, Bray set to work to influence public opinion and to raise funds to alleviate the misery of the inmates. He organized Sunday “Beef and Beer” dinners in prisons and advanced proposals for prison reform.
Bray’s most widely circulated work was A Course of Lectures upon the Church Catechism, published in 1696. He is commemorated in several Churches in the Anglican Communion on this date.