Charles Augustus Murray
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Sir Charles Augustus Murray (22 November 1806-3 June 1895) was a British author and diplomat.
Murray was the second son of George Murray, 5th Earl of Dunmore, and his mother was the daughter of Archibald Hamilton, 9th Duke of Hamilton. He was educated at Eton and the University of Oxford.
Murray spent several years travelling across Europe and America from 1835 and 1838, including several months with a Pawnee tribe in 1835. He described his experiences in his popular book Travels in North America (1839). On his return journey, he had a romantic liaison with Elise Wadsworth of Niagara, but her father disapproved of the match. He attempted to remain in the United States as Secretary of the British Legation, but failed to obtain the position. He returned to England, and wrote of the affair in a thinly-disguised novel, The Prairie-Bird (1844). On three occasions he stood as a Member of Parliament, but was unsuccessful each time, and finally obtained a position in the Court of the young Queen Victoria.
After seven years, he became a diplomat in Naples. He was then consul-general in Cairo from 1846 to 1853, where he was friendly with the Ottoman Viceroy, Mehmet Ali Pasha. While stationed in Egypt, he arranged the transport of Obaysch the hippopotamus to England in 1850. Obaysch was the first hippopotamus in England since prehistoric times, and the first in Europe since Roman times. For this later feat, and his clear affection for the beast at London Zoo, he was nicknamed "Hippopotamus Murray". He also pushed forward the construction of the railway to Alexandria.
Elise Wadsworth's father died in 1849, and he married her on 12 December 1850 during a visit to Scotland. She died in childbirth on 8 December 1851, but their son survived.
He was briefly consul in Berne, and was then appointed British ambassador to the Court of the Shah of Persia in 1854. The Shah, Nasser al-Din Shah, and Murray took against each other immediately. Murray's heavy-handed attitude inflamed an existing dispute over Hashim Khan, one of the Shah's bodyguards and an officer in the Persian army, who took up a position as secretary in the British embassy against the wishes of the Shah and his prime minister. Hashim Khan's wife was the subject of widespread gossip relating to Murray and his predecessor as ambassador; she was also a sister of the Shah's principal wife, so the scandal was political dynamite. Hashim Khan's wife was taken into custody by her brother on 14 November 1855, to defend her honour. Murray took this as an insult to the British legation; after demanding her release, Murray broke off diplomatic relations on 20 November. This, and British ambitions to control the city of Herat, led to the Anglo-Persian War of 1856/7. After the war, Murray remained ambassador until 1859.
Murray married a second time, on 1 November 1862, to the Honourable Edith Susan Esther FitzPatrick, daughter of John FitzPatrick, 1st Baron Castletown.
He became a member of the Privy Council in 1875.
[edit] External links
- [1] The causes of the Anglo-Persian War of 1856
- [2], [3], details of The Prairie-Bird
