Background
He was born at Caldwell, Ayrshire, on 9 July 1799, was the eldest son of William Mure of Caldwell, colonel of the Renfrew militia, and lord rector of Glasgow University 1793-1794, by his wife Anne, eldest daughter of Sir James Hunter Blair, bart., of Dunskey, Wigtownshire, and was thus grandson of William Mure, baron of exchequer, and a descendant of the Mures of Rowallan.
Education
He was educated at Westminster School, at the university of Edinburgh, and afterwards in Germany at the university of Bonn.
Career
He sat in the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1846-1855 as the Conservative Member of Parliament for Renfrewshire and was Laird of Caldwell in Ayrshire. When he was about twenty-two he contributed to the Edinburgh Review an article on Spanish literature. His first independent publication was Brief Remarks on the Chronology of the Egyptian Dynasties (against Champollion), issued in 1829.
(London, Octavo).
lieutenant was followed in 1832 by A Dissertation on the Calendar and Zodiac of Ancient Egypt (Edinburgh, Octavo). In 1838, Mure began a tour in Greece, leaving Ancona for Corfu on 17 February. He studied the "topography of Ithaca, and visited Acarnania, Delphi, Boeotia, Attica, and the Peloponnese.
He published an interesting Journal of a Tour in Greece and the Ionian Islands in 1842 (Edinburgh, Octavo).
His principal work, A Critical History of the Language and Literature of Ancient Greece, was issued 1850-1857, London, Octavo. 2nd edit 1859, Octavo.
lieutenant consists of five volumes, but deals only with a part of the subject, viz. the early history of writing, Homer, Hesiod, the early lyric poets and historians Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon. lieutenant contains no account of the dramatists, orators, or any literature subsequent to 380 British Columbia Mure also published The Commercial Policy of Pitt and Peel, 1847, Octavo.
Selections from the Papers preserved at Caldwell, Maitland Club, 1854, Octavo.
Remarks on the Appendices to the second volunteer 3rd edit, of Mr. Grote"s History of Greece, London, 1851, Octavo. And National Criticism in 1858 (on a criticism of Mure"s "History of the Literature of Greece"), London, 1858, Octavo.
Mure had succeeded to the Caldwell estates on his father"s death, 9 February 1831.
He was, like his father, for many years colonel of the Renfrewshire militia, and was lord Rector of the University of Glasgow in 1847-1848. He was Member of Parliament for Renfrewshire from 1846 to 1855 in the conservative interest, but seldom spoke in the house.
He was created Doctorate.C.L. by Oxford University on 9 June 1833. He was a man of commanding presence, winning manners, and kindly disposition.
He died at Kensington Park Gardens, London, on 1 April 1860, aged 60.
Mure is buried in the parish church of Neilston. The second son, Charles Reginald, became an officer in the 43rd light infantry. The eldest son, William, was lieutenant-colonel in the Scots fusilier guards, Member of Parliament for Renfrewshire 1874-1880, and died in 1880, leaving an only son William.
Membership
14th United Kingdom Parliament. 15th United Kingdom Parliament. 16th United Kingdom Parliament.