Woronora Memorial Park 1 Linden Street Sutherland NSW 2232
Cemetery Address
Sutherland, NSW
Demonination/Area
Anglican Monumental
Section
7
Grave Number
0299
Notes
See also brothers #3889 Harold and #3890 Arthur
MASTER AT ARMS DOUGLAS HUGH MURRAY 1704 RAN/ CONSTABLE NDP 368
Douglas Murray was born in Maryvale NSW in May 1896, the son of Alexander and Edith Murray. He had three older brothers and sisters, a twin brother Harold, and four younger siblings. It was a large but healthy family, all nine Murray children would live to at least fifty, unusual for the time. Douglas enlisted in the RAN as a Boy 2nd Class on HMAS Tingira in June 1912, with his twin Harold Alexander Murray O/N 1772. Douglas was advanced to Boy 1st Class in May 1913 on joining the Light Cruiser HMAS Melbourne and to Ordinary Seaman 2nd Class the following week on his 17th birthday.
Douglas’s older brother Leading Stoker Arthur Clarence Murray 2548 enlisted in January 1913, deserted in November of that year but turned himself in at the outbreak of war serving on Torpedo Boat Destroyers. Douglas’s twin, Leading Seaman Harold Alexander Murray also deserted in May 1914, returning in September 1914 serving until 1921.
Douglas would serve on Melbourne until February 1916 during which time he would be advanced to Ordinary Seaman in May 1914 and to Able Seaman the following August. He served in New Guinea, the Caribbean, and the North Sea on Melbourne. In February 1916 Douglas posted to the London Depot for passage to Australia and after a period of leave and service at HMAS Cerberus he joined the Light Cruiser HMAS Brisbane when it commissioned in October 1916.
He would serve in Brisbane until February 1920, during which time he was promoted to Leading Seaman in July 1918 and to Petty Officer in October 1919. On leaving Brisbane, Douglas returned to Tingira as ships’ company before undertaking a Regulating Petty Officer’s (RPO) course at HMAS Cerberus in April 1922. Over the next four years he would serve in HMAS Penguin, HMAS Platypus, HMAS Adelaide and HMAS Tingira as a RPO before being promoted to the rank of Master at Arms on Tingira in October 1926. In December 1922 he married Margaret Musgrave in Sydney, the union would produce a daughter in 1924.
In February 1927 Douglas transferred to the Dockyard Police with the rank of Constable and posted to Swan Island in Port Phillip Bay. It would have been a significant drop in status from being a RPO on a cruiser and the MAA of Tingira to keeping watches as a constable on a store's depot. It clearly didn’t work out and in 1928 Douglas was convicted of a warrant offence, lost his third Good Conduct Badge and he was discharged on the 28th of August 1928 as “Unsuitable”.
The family returned to NSW, initially to Waverley in Sydney where he worked as a labourer, then moving to the Tamworth area where he obtained as a Steward and later again labouring. By 1937 the family had moved to the Newcastle district where he obtained work with the council, they would remain in the area for the rest of Douglas’s life.
Douglas Murray passed away at Newcastle Hospital on the 21st of April 1966 at the age of 69. His ashes are interred in the Newcastle Memorial Park Beresford, Loggia Court 2 W/130.
