Hubert Murray

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Sir John Hubert Plunkett Murray, (29 December 1861 – 27 February 1940) was Lieutenant-Governor of Papua from 1908 until his death at Samarai.

Murray was born in Sydney and educated at Sydney Grammar School, Brighton College (from which he was expelled after punching a master) and Oxford.

Murray was a tall (6'3" or 190 cms), powerfully built man, who played rugby for the Harlequins and won the English amateur heavyweight boxing title.

In 1892 he became a legal draftsmen for the New South Wales parliament but described his time there as "living death in Macquarie Street" and left in 1896 to lead a more adventurous life. He was a Lieutenant-Colonel with the Australian Forces mounted infantry brigade in the Boer War.

In 1904, Hubert Murray was appointed as a judge in what was still British New Guinea. He was appointed Acting Administrator in 1907 and Lieutenant-Governor in 1908, a position he held until his death at Samarai in 1940.

He was succeeded as administrator by his nephew, Hubert Leonard Murray (1886-1963), who had been Official Secretary since 1916.

The Murray family was among the early settlers of the Canberra district of New South Wales, where his father Sir Terence Aubrey Murray once owned Yarralumla.

Hubert was the brother of Sir Gilbert Murray, professor of Greek at Oxford University, and father of Patrick Desmond Fitzgerald Murray, professor of Zoology at Sydney University.

In Port Moresby the PNG Army barracks , the leading "international" primary school, the Hubert Murray Stadium and the main highway are all named after him.

[edit] Publications

Papua Of To-Day or An Australian Colony in the Making, P.S. King and Son, London 1925

[edit] References

• The Australia Year Book 1931 has an article on the early history of the Canberra district, including the Murray family connection with it.
• Lewis Lett, Sir Hubert Murray of Papua: Statesman and Empire Builder, Collins, Sydney, 1949
• Francis West, Hubert Murray: The Australian Pro-Consul, Oxford Uni. Press Melbourne, 1968
• Francis West, Selected Letters Of Hubert Murray, Oxford University Press Melbourne 1970