The number eight was capped 15 times at international level, touring Australia and New Zealand and skippering the side during the 1965 Five Nations.
Perry featured for Cambridge in the 1958 Varsity match, before going on to play for Bedford between 1962 and 1966.
He made 105 appearances and scored 115 points for Bedford. A Bedford statement said: "The club extends its deepest sympathy to David's family."

Irishman David Agnew, of Carby Heights in Keady, County Armagh, was arrested at his home on Friday.
Police officers entered his house with a warrant and asked him if there was anything they needed to know about.
The court heard he indicated there was but when questioned further, he replied "you'll have to find it".
A police officer told Newry Magistrates' Court that, during the subsequent search, officers found between €190,000 (£160,000) and €200,000 (£170,000) in a footstool in the living room, and between £40,000 and £50,000 sterling wrapped in bundles of £1,000 in a bedroom.
In the roof space, they discovered 2.5kg of white powder, which tested positive as cocaine.
Police also found a handgun in the roof space, a magazine loaded with five or six bullets and a silencer.
A second silencer was found elsewhere in the house along with a plastic container containing a substance that also tested positive for cocaine.
A police officer told the court that during three interviews over the weekend, Mr Agnew had made no comment.
Mr Agnew spoke only to confirm his name and address and date of birth.
He did not apply for bail and was remanded in custody to appear again via video link next month.

The low-frequency active sonar, approved in 2012, is used to detect enemy submarines.
But it can also harm whales, dolphins and walruses that rely on underwater sound for navigating, catching prey and communicating, according to environmental groups.
The case will now be sent back to a lower court for further consideration.
In 2012, the National Marine Fisheries Service permitted navy sonar use but required it to shut down or delay use when a marine mammal was detected near the ships. Loud sonar pulses were also banned near coastlines and in certain protected waters.
Environmental groups, led by the Natural Resources Defense Council, filed a lawsuit in response, claiming the approval violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
The San Francisco federal appeals court ruled that the approval rules granted to the US Navy failed to meet a section of the protection act that required the programme to have "the least practicable adverse impact on marine mammals".
While it said it believed the navy had attempted to follow guidelines, it concluded that the fisheries service "did not give adequate protection to areas of the world's oceans flagged by its own experts as biologically important".
According to experts, the sonar systems used by the navy generate sound waves that can reach 235 decibels - a loud rock band reaches around 130.
These sound waves can travel for hundreds of miles under water and can retain an intensity of 140 decibels as far as 300 miles from their source.
Although direct correlations are hard to find, some scientists believe that the use of sonar has changed the behaviour of whales which have been observed swimming away, sometimes hundreds of miles, rapidly changing their depth and beaching themselves.
Former England rugby union captain David Perry has died at the age of 79.
[NEXT_CONCEPT]
A 39-year-old man has appeared in court charged with having cocaine, a handgun and bundles of cash which the police believe were the proceeds of crime.
[NEXT_CONCEPT]
Sonar approved for use by the US Navy broke marine laws, a US appeals court has ruled.