Hubert Murray
Hubert Murray | |
---|---|
Lieutenant-Governor of Papua | |
In office 1908–1940 | |
Preceded by | Francis Rickman Barton |
Succeeded by | Hubert Leonard Murray |
Personal details | |
Born | 29 December 1861 Sydney, New South Wales |
Died | 27 February 1940 Samarai, Papua | (aged 78)
Sir John Hubert Plunkett Murray
Early life
Murray was born in
After university he entered the legal profession, and was
New Guinea
In 1904, Murray was appointed as a judge in what was still
He set himself to understand the native mind, and found that an appeal to vanity was often more effective than punishment. Murray eventually wiped out cannibalism and head-hunting, largely by ridiculing tribes that followed those practices, and praising those that did not. He was involved in controversy of the "dog incident", when he attended a meeting called to suppress the activities of sorcerers (vadas or vatas), when local people attempted to demonstrate the power of their vadas by reviving a dog that had been killed.[3]
Publications
In 1912 Murray published Papua or British New Guinea, in which the chapters on "The Native Population" and "The Administration of justice" give good descriptions of the many problems he had to deal with. In 1925 his Papua of Today appeared, which showed the progress that had been made in carrying out his ideas. Portions of this book included material from pamphlets published by Murray in 1919 and 1920 on the Australian Administration in Papua, and Recent Exploration in Papua.
His sympathetic understanding of the native mind continued to be the strongest influence in his government. His policy had become more defined but its basis was always the "preservation of the native races, even of those weaker peoples who are not yet able to stand by themselves. The well-being and development of these peoples is declared by the League of Nations to form a sacred trust of civilization, and this declaration is entirely in accord with all the best traditions of British administration".
Murray held too that each native was an individual entitled to his own life, his own family, and his own village. He recognised that natives had their own codes of behaviour, and if these came into conflict with European codes no good could come from what he called the "swift injustice" of punitive expeditions.
He preferred to lead his people into better ways and he persuaded them to keep their villages clean, because only inferior races preferred dirt; to pay taxes, because a man who did not do so was a social defaulter; to be vaccinated, because that was a sign of government approval. He trained suitable men to be policemen, and he had
Murray was the leader of the Australasian delegates to the Pan-Pacific Science Congress held at Tokyo in 1926, and president of the meeting of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science in 1932. He went steadily on with his work until he died at Samarai, Papua, on 27 February 1940.
The story is one of continued progress. Education for the indigenous people had increased, a beginning had been made with industrial enterprises, the population had begun to understand European modes of conducting business, and not a few of them had banking accounts. This had been accomplished with as little breaking down as possible of indigenous Papuan customs. Murray was succeeded as administrator by his nephew, Hubert Leonard Murray (1886-1963), who had been Official Secretary since 1916.
Family
The Murray family was among the early settlers of the Canberra district of New South Wales, where his father Sir Terence Aubrey Murray owned Yarralumla, and Windradeen, at Lake George. His grandfather, Captain Terence Murray, was a member of the Coldstream Guards and came to Australia as the paymaster for the 48th Regiment after having been the Paymaster of the Irish Brigade of Guards since 1811.
Hubert was the brother of
In 1889 Murray married Miss Sybil Maud Jenkins ( - 1929). They had three children:
- Mary, later married to Capt. Charles Robert Pinney, (1883 - 1945) Administrator of Norfolk Islandfrom 1932 to 1937.
- Mary and Charles had two children, Maura and Peter Pinney (1922 - 1992) noted travel writer.
- Peter married Alice Brown (1933 - 1995) and they had a daughter Sava Pinney (1959 -). Peter married for a second time to Estelle Runcie.
- Major Terence Murray, D.S.O., M.C.
- Terence married Philippa Kitchener, niece of the first Lord Kitchener and they had three daughters, Molly, Sybil and Sheila.
- Molly married Anthony Stallard, and they had two daughters, Carola Leonard and Serena Wallace. Carola married economist Michael Leonard, they had one daughter, photographer Crista Leonard. Serena married Australian Stephen Wallace and they had two sons, Matthew Wallace and Ollie Wallace.
- Patrick Desmond Fitzgerald Murray D.Sc.(1900-1967), professor of Zoology at Sydney University
- Patrick married Margery Holland.
- Murray's brother Gilbert married Mary Howard, and they had a daughter Rosalind who married Arnold Toynbee. They had two sons, Philip and Lawrence.
On 20 February 1930 Hubert Murray married an Irish widow Mrs Mildred Blanche Vernon née Trench (1875 - 1960). They were later separated.[1]
Legacy
- In Hubert Murray Stadiumand the main highway are all named after him.
- The Official Papuan Collection, National Museum of Australia, over 3,000 items collected by Sir Hubert Murray for the Australian Territory of Papua, between 1907 and 1933, held in the National Museum of Australia.
Publications
- Papua, or British New Guinea, London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1912
- Recent Exploration in Papua, Sydney: Turner & Henderson, 192?
- Papua Of To-Day or An Australian Colony in the Making, London: P.S. King and Son, 1925
- Native Administration in Papua, Port Moresby, June 1929
- Are Missions Necessary?, Sydney: Australian Board of Missions, 1930
- Selected Letters of Hubert Murray (ed. Francis West), Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1970
- Booklets
- Report by His Excellency the Lieut.-Governor of Papua to the Minister for home and territories on an article on "Three power rule in New Guinea" by Rinzo Gond, Port Moresby, 1919
- Review of the Australian administration in Papua from 1907 to 1920, Port Moresby, 192?
- Anthropology and the Government of Subject Races, Port Moresby, 1921
- The population problem in Papua : a paper read by J.H.P. Murray, Lieutenant-Governor of Papua, before the Pan-Pacific Conference, at Melbourne, 21st August, 1923, Port Moresby, 1923
- Notes on Colon Ainsworth's Report on the Mandated Territory of New Guinea, 1924
- Native custom and the government of primitive races with especial reference to Papua : a paper read at the third Pan-Pacific Science Congress, Tokyo, 1926, Port Moresby, 1926
- The Response of the Natives of Papua to Western Civilisation, Port Moresby, 1928
- Indirect rule in Papua : a paper read before the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science at Hobart, in January 1928, Port Moresby, 1928
- Native Labour in Papua, London: Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society, 1929
- The Scientific Method as Applied to native Labour Problems in Papua, Port Moresby, 1931
- The scientific aspect of the pacification of Papua : presidential address at the meeting of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science held at Sydney in August 1932, Port Moresby, 1932
- Notes on the Suggested Combination of the Administrations of Papua and New Guinea, 1939
- Introductions
- T.F. Unwin, Patrolling in Papua, London: T.Fisher Unwin, 1923
- F.E. Williams, Orokaiva Society, Port Moresby, 1930
- F.E. Williams, Sentiments and Leading Ideas in Native Society, Port Moresby, 1932
- Ivan F. Champion, Across New Guinea from the Fly to the Sepik, London: Constable, 1932
- Lewis Lett, Knights Errant of Papua, Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1935
References
- ^ a b c d H. N. Nelson, 'Murray, Sir John Hubert Plunkett (1861 - 1940)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 10, Melbourne University Press, 1986, pp 645-648. Retrieved 2009-10-29
- ^ a b c Notable Men of the Pacific Pacific Islands Monthly, August 1930, p6
- ^ Correspondence (18 December 1931). "The "Dog" Incident". II(5) Pacific Islands Monthly. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
Further reading
- Lewis Lett, Sir Hubert Murray of Papua: Statesman and Empire Builder, Collins, Sydney, 1949
- H. N. Nelson, "Murray, Sir John Hubert Plunkett (1861–1940)", Australian Dictionary of Biography vol. 10, National Centre of Biography (Australian National University), 1986.
- Francis West, Hubert Murray: The Australian Pro-Consul, Oxford Uni. Press Melbourne, 1968
- Francis West, Selected Letters Of Hubert Murray, Oxford University Press Melbourne 1970
External links
- Australian National Museum Audio on Demand: Australia’s Official Papuan collection: Sir Hubert Murray and the how and why of a colonial collection, Sylvia Schaffarczyk, Australian National University, 21 March 2006