He studied at the Royal Academy of Music from 1925 to 1928 and thereafter was organ scholar at Worcester College, Oxford, from 1928 to 1931.
Murrill"s second wife was the cellist Vera Canning. He was for a time in the 1930s organist of Christ Church, Lancaster Gate, London and Street Thomas"s Church, Regent Street, London. From 1933 until his early death, he was Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music.
He was for a time in the late 1930s Musical Director of The Group Theatre.
He also worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation from 1936 onwards (save for a period in the Intelligence Corps between 1942 and 1946, during part of which he time he served at Bletchley Park), reaching the post of Head of Music in 1950. He died in London.
