Family and Education

b. 28 Aug. 1690, 3rd but 2nd surv. s. of John, 1st Duke of Atholl [S], by his 1st w. Lady Katherine Hamilton, da. of William, 3rd Duke of Hamilton [S]; half-bro. of Lord John Murray. educ. St. Andrews 1705. m. (1) 28 Apr. 1726, Jane (deed of separation 23 July 1745, d. 13 June 1748), da. of Thomas Frederick of Downing St., Westminster, sis. and h. of Sir John Frederick, 1st Bt., wid. of James Lannoy of Hammersmith, Mdx., 2s. 2da.; (2) 11 May 1749, Jean, da. of John Drummond of Megginch, Perth, s.p. suc. fa. as 2nd Duke 14 Nov. 1724; cos. James Stanley, M.P., 10th Earl of Derby, both in the sovereignty of the I.o.M. and as Lord Strange in the peerage of England, 7 Mar. 1737; K.T. 11 Feb. 1734.

Offices Held

Capt.-lt. 1 Ft. Gds. 1712, capt. and lt.-col. 1714; 2nd lt.-col. 1 Ft. 1718-24.

Hereditary sheriff, Perth 1724-48; rep. peer [S] 1733-41; ld. privy seal [S] 1733-63; keeper of great seal [S] 1733-d.; P.C. 31 Jan. 1734.

Biography

Returned on the Atholl interest for Perthshire, Murray adhered to the Government in the Fifteen, in which three of his brothers joined the rebels, two of them, the Marquess of Tullibardine and Lord George Murray, surviving to hold high command in the rebel army during the Forty-five. On Tullibardine’s attainder the family honour and estates were settled by Act of Parliament on Murray who, though classed at his election as a Tory, voted in all recorded divisions with the Government, applying unsuccessfully for a place and a pension for his father.1 Succeeding to the dukedom in 1724, he attached himself to Lord Ilay, from 1725 the head of affairs in Scotland, to whom he owed his appointment to office and election as a representative peer in 1733. On the outbreak of the rebellion of 1745 he fled to London, leaving his family and property in charge of his pardoned brother, Lord George Murray, whom he had appointed as his deputy in Perthshire to deal with the crisis, but who promptly went over to the rebels.2 After the rebellion he refused to intervene on behalf of Jacobite prisoners, ‘having during the whole period of the late rebellion been determined to have nothing to do with the cases of those whose wickedness and folly should bring themselves into distress on that account, farther than to take shame to myself for the disgrace some of my relations have brought upon themselves and their family’.3

He died 8 Jan. 1764.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: J. M. Simpson

Notes

• 1. Atholl Chron. ii. 325.
• 2. K. Tomasson, The Jacobite General, 16-21.
• 3. Atholl Chron. iii. 339.