Scottish Authors > Charles Murray Poet 1864-1941

Charles Murray was born in Alford, Aberdeenshire on 28th September 1864. After schooling in Alford he trained as a civil engineer in Aberdeen. He emigrated in 1888 to South Africa and became a partner in a firm of architects and engineers. In his self-imposed exile he took to writing verse as he strove to maintain strong links with his family and his native Alford. He wrote in the local vernacular to please his father. Eager to see his verses in print he had twelve copies of A Handful of heather printed privately in Aberdeen in 1893, only to withdraw it and to discard all but thirteen of the forty poems it contained. These were revised and published later in Hamewith. In 1895 he married Edith Rogers. They had three children, one son and two daughters. Wlth the outbreak of the Boer War in 1899 he served in the Railway Pioneer Regiment. He also served in the First World War.

His home in Scotland and the language of his childhood were still his inspiration and the publication in 1900 of Hamewith, meaning "homewards" makes his motivation clear. Hamewith was re-published five times during his life. Its recurring theme was life in the Vale of Alford and its language was the broad Scots of the farming folk. From 1901 Murray's career flourished and he held various senior appointments in the Transvaal before becoming Secretary of Public Works, South Africa in 1910. A new edition of Hamewith was published in London in 1909 with an introduction by Andrew Lang who wrote:

The Scots of Mr Murray is so pure and so rich that it may puzzle some patriots whose sentiments are stronger than their linguistic acquirements.

He noted also that Murray's translations of Horace into Scots, "are among the best extant". Still another treasure in Hamewith is The Whistle, a poem full of humour and high spirits:

He blew them rants sae lively, schottisches, reels and jigs,

The foalie flang his muckle legs an' capered ower the rigs.

His poems in The Sough o' war published in 1917 demonstrate yet again the poet's fervour for his own countryside and his pride in the courage of his countrymen. With In the country places, published in 1920, Murray's wry humour and deep insight had full scope in poems like Gin I was God and It wasna his wyte.

It was coorse still an' on to be walloped like thon,

When it wasna his wyte he was late.

Murray became LLD (honoris causa) of Aberdeen University in 1920 and honoured as CMG in 1922.

He died in Banchory on 12th April 1941. His ashes were interred in the Kirkyard of Alford. There are memorial gates at Murray Park, Alford, officially opened in 1956. The Charles Murray Memorial Trust, founded in 1942, arranged publication of his Last poems in 1969 and Hamewith - the complete poems of Charles Murray in 1979.

A bust and two portraits, one by his daughter Sheila, are in Aberdeen Art Gallery.

John AL Gilfillan

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