Rev. Thomas Boyles Murray

"Rev. T. B. MURRAY, M.A.

Sept. 24. In Brunswick-square, aged 61, the Rev. Thomas Boyles Murray, M.A., Incumbent of the parish of St. Dunstan’sin-the-East, Prebendary of St. Paul's, and Senior Secretary of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

Mr. Murray was descended of a philanthropic line well known in their day, and

doing good service to the public by their prominence in works of Christian zeal and charity. Hisgrandfather, Dr. John Murray, a leading physician in Norfolk, a man of character and high accomplishments, was one of the first promoters of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, and subsequently was the founder of an institution in Norwich entitled “The Society of Universal Goodwill,” which contained the germ of the “Society of Friends of Foreigners in Distress;” an institution which now reckons no fewer than fourteen crowned heads among its supporters. His son Charles, the father of the deceased, was educated under Dr. Parr, and adopting the profession of a solicitor, still gave his leisure to the same philanthropic objects. His long and useful life was brought to a close in March, 1847, at the age of 79. Thomas Boyles Murray, the third surviving son of this gentleman, was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, and took his degree of M.A. at Pembroke College, Cambridge. His first curacy was at Starcross, Devon: and he afterwards became Curate at St. Olave's, Hart-street, London. In 1838 he was presented by the late Archbishop of Canterbury to the living of St. Dunstan's-in-the-East, valued in the Clergy List at £350 per annum. He was subsequently appointed to a prebendal stall in St. Paul's Cathedral,—an honour wholly without emolument; and was also Chaplain to the Countess of Rothes. In 1832 he became Secretary to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; and he remained in that post until the time of his death, a period of no less than twenty-eight years. This appointment, in the discharge of which he displayedall the qualities essential toits duties, is alone equivalent to a character for manly intelligence, prudential conduct, and active ability, and it is a subject for surprise that those authorities in whose hands ecclesiastical patronage is vested omitted to mark their sense of his merit and his services to the Church by the bestowal of some more adequate preferment than the small benefice of St. Dunstan-in-theEast. His correspondence with leading men

throughout the kingdom, and with the clergy at home and abroad, involved as he was in important transactions every day, was a demand which could only be answered by a man of first-rate ability; but he sometimes advanced beyond the strict duties of office in philanthropic authorship. The state of that extraordinary colony founded in Pitcairn's Island by the mutineers of the “Bounty,” attracted his attention in the course of official correspondence, and he produced a narrative of the little settlement, one of the most natural, graphic, and characteristic works of the day. As a fellow of the Antiquarian Society, he naturally devoted some of his labours to the illustration of his own parish, and he published very recently a strikingly vigorous and intelligent account of the church of St. Dunstan, containing all the history in connection with the parish, and memoirs of its leading citizens from an early period, a work which might be advantageously imitated by other incumbents of the City churches, and which would be a very appropriate object of local contribution and episcopal patronage. Mr. Murray also wrote occasionally on matters of public information and usefulness to many of the leading journals of the day. He had likewise poetic talent, and wrote many little works, as “The Alphabet of Emblems,” “Golden Sayings,” “Lays of Christmas,” and several others. In private life he was hospitable, animated, and full of intellectual conversation, and to this he added the genuine feelings of an English heart. There are few men who will be more regretted in his parish, at his table, or in general society than Thomas Boyles Murray. His death was strangely and startlingly sudden. Of a tall and vigorous form, of most temperate habits, and with no known disease, he gave the impression of one who might have lived to advanced years. On Thursday, September 20, after spending the greater part of the day, as usual, at the office of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and the evening in preparing his sermon for the following Sunday, he retired to rest about GENT. MAG. Wol. CCIX.

11 o'clock, and had no sooner reached his chamber than he was seized with an attack of paralysis, and became speechless and insensible. In this melancholy state he continued, though with intervals of consciousness; during one of which his afflicted wife and children had the comfort of receiving the Holy Communion with him. On the night of Monday the 24th he calmly expired. He has left three sons just entering into life. Mr. Murray was buried in KensalGreen Cemetery. His funeral was attended by his three sons and five of his brothers, and the Secretaries of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge."

• Source - The Gentleman's Magazine, Volume 209, pp. 556-557.
• Reference: MyHeritage Family Trees - SmartCopy: Feb 17 2016, 23:26:35 UTC