Dr James Murray

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...

(21 July 1865,

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

– February 1914) was a biologist and explorer.

Early life and education

He was born at 50 Charlotte Street in

the son of William Murray, a grocer, and his wife, Janet McMurray. He studied Zoology at

Glasgow University , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

and took art classes at

Glasgow School of Art The Glasgow School of Art (GSA; gd, Sgoil-ealain Ghlaschu) is a higher education art school based in Glasgow, Scotland, offering undergraduate degrees, post-graduate awards (both taught and research-led), and PhDs in architecture, fine art, an ...

Career

In 1902, he assisted the oceanographer Sir John Murray with a

bathymetric Bathymetry (; ) is the study of underwater depth of ocean floors (''seabed topography''), lake floors, or river floors. In other words, bathymetry is the underwater equivalent to hypsometry or topography. The first recorded evidence of water d ...

survey of Scottish freshwater

lochs ''Loch'' () is the Scottish Gaelic, Scots and Irish word for a lake or sea inlet. It is cognate with the Manx lough, Cornish logh, and one of the Welsh words for lake, llwch. In English English and Hiberno-English, the anglicised spelling ...

. Murray undertook both biological and bathymetric surveys. In particular, he contributed to

tardigrade Tardigrades (), known colloquially as water bears or moss piglets, are a phylum of eight-legged segmented micro-animals. They were first described by the German zoologist Johann August Ephraim Goeze in 1773, who called them Kleiner Wasserbär ...

and

bdelloid Bdelloidea (Greek ''βδέλλα'', ''bdella'', "leech") is a class of rotifers found in freshwater habitats all over the world. There are over 450 described species of bdelloid rotifers (or 'bdelloids'), distinguished from each other mainly ...

rotifer The rotifers (, from the Latin , "wheel", and , "bearing"), commonly called wheel animals or wheel animalcules, make up a phylum (Rotifera ) of microscopic and near-microscopic pseudocoelomate animals. They were first described by Rev. John H ...

science: describing 113 species and forma of rotifer and 66 species of tardigrade. In July 1907, he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

. His proposers were Sir John Murray,

George Chrystal George Chrystal FRSE FRS (8 March 1851 – 3 November 1911) was a Scottish mathematician. He is primarily know for his books on algebra and his studies of seiches (wave patterns in large inland bodies of water) which earned him a Gold Meda ...

, James Burgess and

Thomas Nicol Johnston Thomas Nicol Johnston FRSE (1870–1923) was a Scottish physician and noted amateur zoologist. Life He was the son of Wilhelmina Storrie (1836–1903) and Thomas Johnston (1822–1899) of Corstorphine House in western Edinburgh. He studied me ...

. He was awarded the Society's Neil Prize for the period 1909-11. In 1907, at the age of 41, he served under

Ernest Shackleton Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of ...

on the

Nimrod Expedition The ''Nimrod'' Expedition of 1907–1909, otherwise known as the British Antarctic Expedition, was the first of three successful expeditions to the Antarctic led by Ernest Shackleton and his second expedition to the Antarctic. Its main target, ...

where he was in charge of the

base camp Mountaineering or alpinism, is a set of outdoor activities that involves ascending tall mountains. Mountaineering-related activities include traditional outdoor climbing, skiing, and traversing via ferratas. Indoor climbing, sport climbing, an ...

. In 1913, he co-wrote a book about the expedition, titled ''Antarctic Days'', with George Edward Marston (1882–1940), a fellow member of the expedition. In 1911, aged 46, he joined with the explorer Percy Fawcett, Henry Costin and Henry Manley to explore and chart the jungle in the region of the Peru-Bolivian border. Murray, unused to the rigours of the

tropical region The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referred to ...

s, fared poorly. Eventually Fawcett diverted the expedition to get Murray out, such was his condition. He briefly dropped out of sight, having been recovering in a house in Tambopata. He reached

La Paz La Paz (), officially known as Nuestra Señora de La Paz (Spanish pronunciation: ), is the seat of government of the Bolivia, Plurinational State of Bolivia. With an estimated 816,044 residents as of 2020, La Paz is the List of Bolivian cities ...

in 1912, learning that he was thought to have died. Murray, angry at perceived mistreatment at Fawcett's hands, wanted to sue. However friends at the

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

advised him against it.

Final expedition and disappearance

In June 1913, he joined a Canadian scientific expedition to the Arctic aboard the ill-fated ''Karluk'' as oceanographer. The ship became trapped in the Arctic ice in August 1913. Eventually, Murray and three others, dissatisfied with Captain Robert Bartlett's leadership, decided to try to reach safety on their own, and, after signing a letter absolving the captain of responsibility and after receiving supplies from him, they departed across the ice on February 5th to try to reach

Wrangel Island Wrangel Island ( rus, О́стров Вра́нгеля, r=Ostrov Vrangelya, p=ˈostrəf ˈvrangʲɪlʲə; ckt, Умӄиԓир, translit=Umqiḷir) is an island of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia. It is the 91st largest island in the w ...

or Herald Island. They were last seen experiencing major difficulties a few days later by three people returning from another mission (ship's steward Ernest Chafe, and two

Inuit Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories ...

, Kataktovik and Kuraluk), but they refused to return to the ship. The only subsequent hint of their fate was a sailor's scarf belonging to one of them (seaman Stanley Morris), later found buried in an ice floe. Murray and his three companions are presumed to have died in the Arctic in February 1914.

Personal life

In 1892, he married Mary Lyall.

In popular culture

Film

*Murray was portrayed by

Angus Macfadyen Angus Macfadyen (born 21 September 1963) is a Scottish actor. His roles include Robert the Bruce, both in ''Braveheart'' and ''Robert the Bruce'', Komodo in ''Warriors of Virtue'', Vice-Counsel Dupont in '' Equilibrium'', Jeff Denlon in the '' ...

in the 2016 film '' The Lost City of Z''.

Works

*Murray, J., 1905. The Tardigrada of the Scottish Lochs. ''Trans. R. Soc. Edinb''., 41: 677 - 698 *Murray, J., 1905. Microscopic life of St. Kilda. ''Ann. Scott. Nat. Hist''., 54: 94 - 96 *Murray, J., 1905. The Tardigrada of the Forth Valley. ''Ann. Scott. Nat. Hist''., 55: 160 - 164 *Murray, J., 1906. The Tardigrada of the Forth Valley. Part II. ''Ann. Scott. Nat. Hist.'', 60: 214 - 217 *Murray, J., 1906. Scottish National Antarctic Expedition: Tardigrada of the South Orkneys. ''Trans. Roy. Soc. Edinb.'', 45: 323 - 339 *Murray, J., 1906. Scottish Alpine Tardigrada. ''Ann. Scott. Nat. Hist.'', 57: 25 - 30 *Murray, J., 1906. Scottish Alpine Tardigrada. ''Ann. Scott. Nat. Hist.'', 60: 214 - 217 *Murray, J., 1907. Water-bears or Tardigrada. ''Quekett Micr. Club'', 10: 55 - 70 *Murray, J., 1907. Arctic Tardigrada, collected by Wm. S. Bruce. ''Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh'', 45: 669 - 681 *Murray, J., 1907. Some Tardigrada of the Sikkim Himalaya. ''J. Roy. Microsc. Soc.'', 1907: 269 - 273 *Murray, J., 1907. Encystment of Tardigrada. ''Trans. R. Soc. Edinb.'', 45: 837 - 854 *Murray, J., 1907. Some South African Tardigrada. ''J. R. Micr. Soc. London'', 5: 515 - 524 *Murray, J., 1907. Some Tardigrada from the Sikkim Himalaya, ''Journ. R. Micr. Soc''., pt. 3: 269 - 273, pl. 14 *Murray, J., 1907. The encystment of Macrobiotus. ''The Zoologist'', 11: 4 - 11 *Murray, J., 1907. Scottish Tardigrada collected by the Lake Survey. Trans. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, 45: 641 - 668 *Murray, J., 1910. ''Tardigrada. British Antarctic Expedition 1907 - 1909''. Reports on the Scientific Investigations. Vol. 1 Biology (Part V): 83 - 187 (plates 14 - 21) *Murray, J., 1910. ''Canadian Tardigrada''. In Report for the Scientific Investigation of the British Antarctic Expedition 1907 - 1909. Volume I. London: 158 - 178 *Murray, J., 1911. Water-bears or Tardigrada. ''J. Quekett Micr. Club.'', 11: 181 - 198 *Murray, J., 1911. Arctiscoida. ''Proc. R. Ir. Acad.'', 31: 1 - 16 *Murray, J., 1911. Scottish Tardigrada, a review of our present knowledge. ''Ann. Scott. Nat. Hist.'', 78: 88 - 95 *Murray, J., 1911.

Clare Island Survey The Clare island Survey was a multidisciplinary (zoological, botanical, archaeological, and geological) survey of Clare Island an island off the West coast of Ireland. The survey which followed a similar survey of Lambay Island in 1905 and 190 ...

: Arctiscoidea. ''Proc. Roy. Irish Acad.'', Dublin, 31: 1 - 16 *Murray, J., 1913. African Tardigrada. ''J. R. Micr. Soc. London,'' pt. 2: 136 - 144 *Murray, J., 1913. Notes on the Natural History of Bolivia and Peru. ''Scottish Oceanogr. Lab., Edinburgh'': 1 - 45 (Tardigrada, pp. 28 – 30)