James Murray (original) (raw)

Sir James Augustus Henry Murray (1837-1915) was a Scottish lexicographer and philologist. He had no formal education after the age of fourteen but became a respected scholar by private study. He was the primary editor of the Oxford English Dictionary from 1879.

He had eleven children, the eldest Harold James Ruthven Murray becoming a prominent chess historian.

His biography was written by his granddaughter:

He is the professor in the book The Surgeon of Crowthorne (US title The Professor and the Madman). Dr. William Chester Minor, a volunteer who worked on the dictionary was the madman.


James Murray was lord of the Isle of Man from 1736-1764.