Background
He was the younger son of Matthew Murray (1735–1791), minister of North Berwick, and grandson of George Murray (d 1757), who had held the same post. His mother was daughter of John Hill, minister of Saint Andrews, and sister of Henry David Hill, professor at Saint Andrews.
Career
Murray entered the Edinburgh excise office as a clerk. On 22 January 1816 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He was for a time editor of the Scots Magazine, and was a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society of London.
His connection with Archibald Constable"s Edinburgh Gazetteer caused him to figure in the Tory squib, written by James Hogg and others, called Translation from an Ancient Chaldee Mississippi., which appeared in Blackwood"s Magazine for October 1817.
Murray died after a short illness, while on a visit to London, in Wardrobe Place, Doctors" Commons, on 4 March 1846. M. C. Other works.