Letter 0979

Ray thanks Sloane for his letter and asks him to appeal to Mr Willoughby to pay out the half years’ salary her late husband would have earned had he not passed away. The money will be used to cover medical and funerary expenses. As Ray has three young daughters, aged 16 to 20, to care for, she will be forced to dispose of John’s books. Dale is making a catalogue of the library. Ray’s entomological papers are being organized into a draft for Sloane to review. Margaret Ray (nee Oakley) was the wife of John Ray, the naturalist and theologian (Scott Mandelbrote, Ray , John (16271705), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2005 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/23203, accessed 21 May 2011]).