Terence Aubrey Murray

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Sir Terence Aubrey Murray

Sir Terence Aubrey Murray (1810 - June 22, 1873) was an Australian pastoralist and parliamentarian.

Murray was born in Limerick, Ireland. His father Terence Murray was an officer in the army and had travelled to New South Wales in 1817, and in 1825 to India. In 1827 the family moved to New South Wales to take advantage of the free land grants to officers. They arrived in Sydney in April 1827 n the Elizabeth.^[1] They owned a home in Sydney by the name of Winderradeen and in 1837 Murray came into possession of Yarralumla in today's Australian Capital Territory.^[2]

At the time of the establishment of the Legislative Council in 1843, Murray became interested in politics, and he was elected unopposed to represent the body. He was a member of the Legislative Assembly from its establishment in 1856, representing Southern Boroughs and, from 1859, Argyle. Between 1860 and 1862 he was speaker of the Assembly. In 1862 he was appointed for life to the Legislative Council from 1862 and was its President until his death.^[3]

In the 1850s he placed his properties in his wife's name hoping to save them if he should become bankrupt due to drought or economic depression. When she died in 1858 it put him in a difficult situation, as the property passed to the trustees of her estate. Murray was eventually made bankrupt. He was knighted in 1869. He had three children from his first marriage to Mary Gibbs in 1843; after her death he married the children's nanny Agnes Edwards in 1860 with whom he had a further two children John Hubert Plunkett Murray, who later became the administrator of Papua and Gilbert Murray who became a professor of Greek at Oxford and assisted in drafting the League of Nations Covenant.^[1]