# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Murray, Alexander Stuart

​MURRAY, ALEXANDER STUART (1841–1904), keeper of Greek and Roman antiquities in the British Museum, born at Arbirlot, near Arbroath in Forfarshire, on 8 Jan. 1841, was eldest son in a family of four brothers and four sisters of George Murray, a tradesman, and of his wife Helen Margaret Sayles. His younger brother, George Robert Milne Murray [q. v. Suppl. II], was keeper of the department of botany at the British Museum (1895–1905), this being the only instance in the history of the British Museum of two brothers being keepers at the same time.
After being educated at the Royal High School, Edinburgh, Murray attended Edinburgh University during 1863–4, and graduated M.A. He also studied at Berlin University in 1865, where he worked at philological and archaeological subjects under Böckh, Hübner, and Zumpt, and had Henry Nettleship for a fellow student.
Murray was appointed assistant in the department of Greek and Roman antiquities at the British Museum on 14 Feb. 1867. (Sir) Charles Newton [q. v. Suppl. I] was then keeper. The Blacas and Castellani collections had just been purchased, and Wood's excavations were in progress at Ephesus. Between 1867 and 1886 Murray worked actively under Newton's direction, and acquired minute familiarity with the whole collection of Greek and Roman ​antiquities. On 13 Feb. 1886 he succeeded Newton as keeper of the department of Greek and Roman antiquities. The recent removal of the natural history collections to the new buildings in Cromwell Road, Kensington, the completion of the now building known as the 'White Wing' at Bloomsbury, and other alterations, had greatly increased the available space for the exhibition of the collections. Hence a thorough reorganisation of the galleries devoted to Greek and Roman antiquities was rendered at once practicable, and this was for many years Murray's chief preoccupation. The specimens were set out with greater consideration than before for general effect and space, and at the same time all the fittings and labels were improved. He was always helpful to visitors to his department, and patiently answered inquiries of correspondents from a distance. Although he carried through the press no departmental catalogue of his own, he was a careful reader and critic of all that was published by assistants in his department, and contributed introductions to several volumes by them. He wrote the letterpress to the 'Terracotta Sarcophagi, Greek and Etruscan, in the British Museum' (1898), and most of the Enkomi section of the 'Excavations in Cyprus' (Brit. Mus.).
For many years he made it a practice to visit the Continent, especially Greece, Italy, Sicily, or Spain, and so was familiar with the chief classical sites and foreign collections, and with foreign archaeologists. The only occasions on which he took part in work in the field were in 1870, when he visited the site of Priene with Newton, and in 1896, when he was temporarily in charge of the excavations at Enkomi (Salamis) in Cyprus.
He died of pneumonia, supervening on influenza, at his house in the museum precincts, on 5 March 1904, and was buried at Kensal Green.
He was twice married: (1) to Jenny Hancock (who died on 3 Nov. 1874, and is buried at Weybridge); (2) on 5 April 1881, to Anne Murray, youngest daughter of David Welsh, of Tillytoghills, Kincardineshire, who survived. There was no family by either marriage.
Murray was made LL.D. of Glasgow in 1891. He was a corresponding member of the Royal Prussian Academy and of the Academie des Inscriptions of the French Institute; a member of the German Archæological Institute, a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (1889), of the British Academy (1903), and a vice-president of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies.
He was through life an adherant of the Scottish presbyterian church somewhat quick-tempered, he was courteous and warm-hearted.
Murray wrote on classical archæology independently of his official work. His writings showed his width of his knowledge, and were full of curious observations on points of detail; but his power of broad elementary exposition was limited, end though he was always interesting and suggestive, it was by no means easy to follow the general drift of his thought. From 1879 onwards all his writings dealing with early Greece were coloured by his reluctance to accept the early date, was gradually being established beyond controversy, for Mycenean culture.
His chief independent works were: 1. 'A Manual of Mythology,' 1873. 2. 'A History of Greek Sculpture,' vol. i. 'From the Earliest Times down to the Age of Pheidias,' 1880; vol. ii. 'Under Pheidias and his Successors,' 1883; 2nd edit, of both volumes. 1890. 3. 'Handbook of Archæology : Vases, Bronzes, Gems, Sculpture, Terracottas, Mural Paintings, Architecture, &c.,' 1892. 4. 'Greek Bronzes,' 1898. 5. 'The Sculptures of the Parthenon,' 1903.
Murray was also a frequent writer in the leading archæological organs and in the ninth edition of the 'Encydopædia Britannica,' as well as in the 'Contemporary' and 'Quarterly' reviews (cf. Bursiane-Kroll, p. 102).
[Proc. Brit. Acad. 1903-4, p. 321 (by Sir B. Maunde Thompson); Bursiane-Krolt, Biograph. Jahrb. für die Altertumswiss. 1907, p. 100 (A. H. Smith); personal knowledge and private information.]
A. H. S.