Charles Murray (27 September 1864 – 12 April 1941) was a poet who wrote in the Doric dialect of Scots. He was one of three rural poets from the north-east of Scotland, the others being

Flora Garry Flora Garry (30 September 1900 – 16 June 2000) was a Scottish poet who mostly wrote in the Scots dialect of Aberdeenshire. Well known for her poetry, she played an important role along with Charles Murray and John C. Milne in validating t ...

and John C. Milne, who did much to validate the literary use of Scots.

Biography

Charles Murray was born and raised in Alford in north-east

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

. However he wrote much of his poetry while living in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

where he spent most of his working life as a successful civil engineer. His first volume, ''A Handful of Heather'' (1893), was privately printed and he withdrew it shortly after publication to rework many of the poems within it. His second volume, ''Hamewith'' (1900), was much more successful. It was republished five times before he died and it is this volume for which he is best known. The title of the volume, which means ''Homewards'' in English, reflects his expatriate situation. He served in the Armed Forces during the

Second Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the South ...

and the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and in 1917 produced the volume, ''The Sough o' War''. The poems from this anthology were entitled: Ye're better men, A sough o' war, Wha bares a blade for Scotland?, To the hin'most man, The thraws o' fate, The wife on the war, Fae France, Bundle an' go, When will the war be by?, Dockens afore his peers, At the loanin' mou', Lat's hear the pipes, Hairy hears fae hame, and Furth again. He published his last volume, ''In the Country Places'', in 1920. After his death a final volume of poetry, ''Last Poems'' was published by the Charles Murray Memorial Trust in 1969. He returned to Scotland when he retired in 1924 and settled in

Banchory Banchory (, sco, Banchry, gd, Beannchar) is a burgh or town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It is about west of Aberdeen, near where the Feugh River meets the River Dee. Prehistory and archaeology In 2009, a farmer discovered a short cist bu ...

, not far from where he was brought up. There he died in 1941.

References

External links

The University of Aberdeen's Charles Murray website

{{DEFAULTSORT:Murray, Charles 1864 births 1941 deaths Scottish poets Doric poets People from Marr

Biography

See also

References

External links