Keith Murdoch

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This article is about the journalist. For the businessman see Keith Murdoch (businessman). For the rugby player, see Keith Murdoch (All Black).

Keith and Elisabeth Murdoch with Rupert Murdoch and one of his sisters in 1937, departing Melbourne by sea for Britain

Sir Keith Arthur Murdoch (August 12, 1886 - October 4, 1952) was an Australian journalist and the father of Rupert Murdoch.

Murdoch was born in Melbourne in 1886, son of Rev Patrick John Murdoch and Annie, née Brown. He was educated at Camberwell Grammar School and the London School of Economics. After graduation, he began a career in journalism with The Age. He married Elisabeth Greene, now Dame Elisabeth Murdoch in 1928 and they had children Rupert Murdoch, Helen now Mrs Geoff Handbury, Anne now Mrs Milan Kantor and Janet now Mrs John Calvert-Jones.

Murdoch applied to become Australia's official war historian upon the outbreak of World War I in August 1914. In the ballot to decide on that position he lost out to Charles Bean.

In August 1915 that Murdoch managed to get permission to visit Anzac Cove, and for the purpose of investigating the alleged mismanagement of mail sent to Australian soldiers serving in the Gallipoli campaign. Murdoch agreed to hand deliver a letter detailing the mismanagement of the campaign from the British reporter Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett to the British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith.

On route to London, Murdoch was arrested by French Military Police in Marseille and the letter was confiscated. Murdoch made it to London but without the letter so he wrote a replacement to the Australian Prime Minister Andrew Fisher in a similar vein to the Ashmead-Bartlett letter.

It is commonly believed that the letter and the fuss that it created helped bring an end to the Gallipoli campaign.

Murdoch and war historian Charles Bean actively campaigned to have Sir John Monash removed as commander of the Australian Corps. Their plans went awry when Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes actually spoke to the senior officers who supposedly did not support Monash.