George Murray (naturalist)

George Robert Milne Murray FRS FRSE FLS (11 November 1858 – 16 December 1911) was a Scottish naturalist, botanist, diatomist and algologist, noted for his association with T. H. Huxley and with the Discovery Expedition.[1] He was the naturalist aboard the solar eclipse expedition to the West Indies in 1886, and was a member of several scientific voyages for the collection of marine organisms, leading valuable work on the Atlantic coast of Ireland in 1898.

George Robert Milne Murray

FRS FRSE FLS
Murray, c.1900s
Born(1858-11-11)11 November 1858
Died16 December 1911(1911-12-16) (aged 53)
NationalityBritish
Alma materUniversity of Strasbourg
Scientific career
FieldsBotany
InstitutionsBritish Museum
Natural History Museum
InfluencesAnton de Bary
Author abbrev. (botany)G.Murray

Life

Murray was born in Arbroath, Angus, the son of George Murray, a tradesman, and his wife, Helen Margaret Sayles.[2]

He was educated at Arbroath High School. In 1875, he studied cryptogamic botany at the University of Strasbourg under Anton de Bary. He became an assistant in the Department of Botany at the Natural History Museum, succeeding William Carruthers as Keeper of Botany in 1895.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Sir Isaac Bayley Balfour, Frederick Orpen Bower, George Chrystal and Sir John Murray. He was elected a member of the Royal Society in 1897.[3]

He retired in 1905 due to ill health and died in Stonehaven, Kincardineshire, on 16 December 1911.

Family

In 1884 he married Helen Welsh (d.1902).

Publications

He wrote a Handbook of Cryptogamic Botany (1889) and an Introduction to the Study of Seaweeds with A. W. Bennett, and published about forty articles on cryptogams and oceanography, mostly in the Journal of Botany.

Murray edited 'The Antarctic Manual' in 1901 and set out on Robert Falcon Scott's National Antarctic Expedition of that year although leaving the 'Discovery' at Cape Town.

Botanical Reference

References

  1. Bayliss, Robert A. (1975). "George Murray, naturalist". Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh. 42 (3): 279–286.
  2. Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0 902 198 84 X.
  3. Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0 902 198 84 X.
  4. IPNI.  G.Murray.

Notes

    • Stearn, William T. - The Natural History Museum at South Kensington ISBN 0-434-73600-7.


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