▶Date of birth:   26 November 1820       Place of birth: Edinburgh

▶Father:   William Murray    Mother: Ann Gray

▶Spouse(s): -     Date(s) of marriage:       Place(s) of marriage:

▶Occupation: Clergyman (Scottish Free Church and Presbyterian minister); Author

▶Lifestory: The Revd. John Gray Murray worked initially in Scotland, gaining recognition as a preacher and lecturer able to speak on numerous topics and typically relating them to the Bible; his final ministry was in Cheltenham. He was born in Edinburgh in 1820, the son of baker William Murray, and his wife Ann (née Gray). He attended the University of Edinburgh, becoming a Licentiate of the Church of Scotland. In 1843 he joined the Free Church, and was licensed to preach the Gospel at a monthly meeting of the Edinburgh Free Presbytery, and in 1844 was ordained and called to serve at Auchencairn, Castle Douglas, Kirkcudbright by the Free Presbytery of Kirkcudbrightshire.

During his career in the Church he was known as a preacher, and published several short texts: in 1844 his Day of visitation appeared, followed in 1846 by A walk to Calvin. In 1849 he married Joanna Anderson, and the couple had one son and four daughters. By the 1850s he was also a popular lecturer, taking on subjects from literature and history to modern developments in science and their relationship to the Bible; he published Jerusalem at Edinburgh in 1851 and in 1861 contributed to a collection entitled Goads and Nails.

An active churchman, he received a call to move to South Shields in Northumbria in 1863, where he was installed as the Pastor-in-Charge of St John’s English Presbyterian Church; he was heralded as “a man of no ordinary ability, and eminently qualified as a preacher”. After seven years of ministry in South Shields, in 1870 he was awarded the degree of DD (USA), and at the same time moved to a new ministry, at the Congregationalist Church in Cheltenham.

Although he remained as Pastor for only a short period (he retired from his duties in March 1872), he stayed in Cheltenham, and from 1872 he lived in retirement at 10 Clarence Square, Pittville; the newspapers record him as taking a month’s holiday in Tenby with his wife and daughter Bertha in the summer of 1877. He died at home in Clarence Square, Pittville in 1881, at the age of sixty; his wealth at death was sworn at under £12,000.

▶Moved to Pittville from:  Elsewhere in Cheltenham      Moved from Pittville to: (deceased)

▶Date of death:  16 February 1881      Place of death: Cheltenham

▶Date of burial:  19 February 1881       Place of burial:  Cheltenham

▶Notes:        ID: 5510

Contributor(s):  John Simpson