JOHN BRUCE
MURRAY
THE senior partner of the firm of John Bruce Murray & Co. is
a son of the late David Alexander Bruce Murray, ship owner, Glasgow, and Anne
Newsom, eldest daughter of Richard Neville Parker of Waterview, County Cork, and
was born at Glasgow in 1853. His father, as a partner of the firm of Reid &
Murray, started the first regular line of sailing ships under the British flag
between Glasgow and New York in 1843, and afterwards founded the Clyde Screw
Steam Packet Company, which carried on the Atlantic trade from Glasgow until its
vessels were withdrawn to act as transports during the Crimean War. Mr. Murray
has followed his father's career in shipping, and was Manager of the State Line
of steamers from 1883 until 1891, when that undertaking was absorbed by the
Allan Line. Since then he has carried on business as a ship owner in the general
carrying trade. He has held numerous public offices connected with shipping; was
President of the Clyde Steamship Owners' Association in 1901 and 1902; is a
Director of the North of England Protecting and Indemnity Association, and
Chairman of its Scottish Sub-Committee ; and is a representative for Scotland on
the Board of the Shipping Federation, London. He is also a member of the
Executive Council of the Chamber of Shipping, and has recently been appointed a
member of Lloyd's Register of British and Foreign Shipping. He has taken an
active interest in municipal affairs, and in 1900 was elected a representative
of the 15th (Park) Ward on the Town Council, to which position he has been twice
re-elected. He has been a Magistrate of the city since 1904, and amongst other
civic matters to which he has specially directed his attention may be mentioned
police court procedure and the treatment of first offenders, and he was largely
instrumental in inducing the Corporation of Glasgow to adopt and establish in
the Police Courts of Glasgow the system of probation guardianship, which has
recently received the approval of the legislature, and been extended by "The
Probation of Offenders Act (1907)." He has travelled for business and pleasure
on the Continent and in the United States and Canada, and at home finds his
recreation in golf. In 1886 he married Jane, youngest daughter of the late
George Winn, of Askrigg, Yorkshire, by whom he has two daughters.
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Index of Glasgow Men (1909)