Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Murray, James Wolfe
MURRAY, Sir JAMES WOLFE (1853–1919), lieutenant-general, the eldest son of James Wolfe Murray, of Cringletie, Peeblesshire, by his first wife, Elizabeth Charlotte Whyte-Melville, was born 13 March 1853. His grandfather was a godson of, and named after, General James Wolfe. Sent first to Glenalmond, he proceeded to Harrow in 1867, where he remained for two years in the house of the Rev. T. H. Steel. Murray entered Woolwich shortly afterwards, and on passing out was gazetted lieutenant in the Royal Artillery on 12 September 1872. In 1881 he was promoted captain, and after graduating at the Staff College began a period of staff and extra-regimental service which continued with but little interruption for over thirty years. His first appointment was as deputy assistant adjutant and quartermaster-general of the North British district in January 1884. He was transferred eight months later to the intelligence branch at the War Office, where he remained for three years. A spell of regimental duty followed, during which he received his majority, and appreciation of his work at the War Office was shown by his appointment for a further spell of two years—from April 1892 to January 1894—for special employment at Whitehall. Thence he proceeded direct to Aldershot, where he held the important post of deputy assistant adjutant-general from the beginning of 1894 to 1897. The tenure of this appointment was interrupted by special service in the Ashanti expedition of 1895, when he was employed upon the lines of communication; for this service he received the Ashanti star and a brevet lieutenant-colonelcy. Murray was offered the post of assistant adjutant-general in India early in 1898, and he was serving at army head-quarters in India as assistant quartermaster-general when the South African War broke out.
By this time Murray had won for himself a high reputation for brilliant intelligence and administrative work, and he was accordingly selected at the outbreak of hostilities for service on the lines of communication in Natal. The value of the work which he then performed was acknowledged by four mentions in dispatches, promotion to colonel, and a K.C.B. He returned to India to become a brigade commander for a short time, and then in May 1903 he was raised to the high office of quartermaster-general in India. He was already a major-general at what was then the extraordinarily early age of fifty. Early in 1904 he became master-general of the ordnance and fourth military member of the Army Council, a position which he held for three years, leaving it to assume command of the ninth (Secunderabad) division in India, during which time he became lieutenant-general (1909). This post he held until 1911, and in 1913 and 1914 he was general-officer-commanding in Scotland and in South Africa respectively.
At the outbreak of the European War, when the War Office was in a state of confusion owing to the hurried departure of the higher military officers to the front, the general staff became merely the executive agent of the highly centralized regime directed by Lord Kitchener. It was in these circumstances that Lieutenant-General Murray was appointed chief of the Imperial General Staff. In this most difficult position at that most difficult hour Wolfe Murray was at a disadvantage. His long administrative training, and even his marvellous industry, tended to make him a master of detail at the expense of breadth of view, and his patience, kindliness, and tolerance of the opinions of others caused him to be unduly diffident in his dealings both with Lord Kitchener and with the politicians. He left the War Office in September 1915, and in that year proceeded on a special mission to Russia—a task much more to his liking, for he was an expert in Russian affairs. For a year from 1916 he was general-officer-commanding in chief, Eastern command, and on 9 April 1917 was appointed colonel-commandant of the Royal Artillery. On 5 May 1918 he retired, and on 17 October 1919 he died suddenly of heart failure at Cringletie. By his death the army lost an officer of untiring industry and shrewd judgement; and one who had the happy gift of being able to inspire his subordinates with intense and affectionate loyalty.
Murray was twice married: first, in 1875 to Arabella (died 1909), daughter of W. Bray, by whom he had two sons and three daughters; secondly, in 1913 to Fanny, daughter of James Scott Robson, and widow of Sir Donald H. Macfarlane.
[Official records; private information.]