Family and Education

b. 14 Apr. 1711, 4th surv. s. of John, 1st Duke of Atholl [S], by his 2nd w. Mary, da. of William Ross, 12th Lord Ross of Halkhead [S]; half-bro. of Lord James Murray. educ. private sch. Chelsea 1720; ?St. Andrews Univ.; Leyden 1728. m. 13 Sept. 1758, Mary, da. of Richard Dalton Sheffield merchant, 1da.

Offices Held

Ensign 3 Ft. Gds. 1727, lt. 1733, capt.-lt. and capt. 1737, capt. and lt.-col. 1738; col. army 1743; col. 42 Ft. 1745-d.; maj.-gen. 1755; lt.-gen. 1758; gen. 1770; raised 2nd bn. 42 Ft. 1780.

Biography

Returned on the Atholl interest for Perthshire on coming of age, Murray, Queen Anne’s godson, voted with the Government in every recorded division. After serving in Germany as a.-d.-c. to the King in 1743, he obtained in 1745 the colonelcy of the Black Watch, to which the Rev. (later Professor) Adam Ferguson was appointed Gaelic speaking chaplain, ‘to be a kind of tutor or guardian to Lord John ... to gain his confidence and keep him in peace with his officers, which it was difficult to do’.1 Recalled from Flanders at the outbreak of the ’45, during which his half-brothers, the attainted ‘Duke William’ and Lord George, held high command in the rebel army, he served in 1746 with his regiment under General St. Clair at L’Orient, and thereafter in Ireland. After the peace he resumed his assiduous attendance in Parliament, unsuccessfully applying to Newcastle for preferment either to a regiment of dragoons or the government of Kinsale in 1753.2

He died 26 May 1787.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: Edith Lady Haden-Guest

Notes

• 1. Atholl Chron. ii. 318-19, 460-3, 465; Autobiog. of Dr. Alexander Carlyle, 295.
• 2. Murray to Newcastle, 23 June 1753, Add. 32732, ff. 93-95.