First World War in Headington & Marston
Roll of Honour of All Saints’ Church, Highfield

Donald Andrew MURRAY (1887–1917)

Donald Andrew Murray was born in Manchester in 1887, the son of Donald A. Murray (born in Camden Town, London in 1851, registered fourth quarter) and Martha Stoakes or Stokes, known as Pattie (baptised at St Michael, Spurriergate, York on 27 April 1862).

At the time of the 1881 census Donald’s father, Donald Murray senior, was 29 and still living with his parents at Oldham: he was working as a commercial traveller in cigars. His future wife Martha Stoakes was 20, and living with her uncle, a commercial traveller for a brewer’s agent, in Stretford, Lancashire.

Donald’s parents were married in the second quarter of 1884 in the Liverpool Registration District and had seven children:

• Donald Andrew Murray (born in Manchester near the beginning of 1887)
• Stanley S. Murray (born in Manchester in 1888)
• Maud Stokes Murray (born in Liverpool in 1893/4, registered first quarter of 1894)
• Jessie Murray (born in Handsworth, Staffordshire in 1895, registered third quarter)
• Florence Murray (born in Handsworth, Staffordshire in 1897, registered third quarter)
• Annie Murray (born in Handsworth, Staffordshire in 1899, registered fourth quarter)
• Thomas Murray (born in Handsworth, Staffordshire in 1902/3, registered in first quarter of 1903).

Donald’s father continued to work as a commercial traveller for a tobacco manufacturer after his marriage, living first in Manchester, where Donald, their first child, was born in 1887. The family is hard to find in the 1891 census, but was in Liverpool by 1893.

By 1895 the Murrays were in Handsworth, Staffordshire, and the 1901 census shows them living with their first six children at 11 Westminster Road, Handsworth. Donald junior was then 15, but had no apparent occupation.

By the time of the 1911 census Donald junior had left home and was lodging in Oxford with the family of Walter Timms, a bookbinder who lived at 4 Great Clarendon Street. He was a single man of 25, and worked as a tobacconist’s manager. Meanwhile his parents were still living at 11 Westminster Road, Handsworth and all their other children were at home. Donald’s brother Stanley (23) was now working as an estate agent’s clerk.

♥ In the second quarter of 1914 Donald Andrew Murray married Elsie May Wilde in the Headington Registration District, and they spent their short married life in Headington. They had one child:

• Donald Frederick Murray (born in 1915, registered third quarter and baptised at All Saints’ Church on 16 September 1915).

At the time of his son’s baptism, Donald Murray was described as an insurance agent, and the family was living in All Saints’ parish at 54 Windmill Road (then called “Uplands”); but they appear to have been living on the London Road at the time of Donald’s death.

In the First World War Donald Andrew Murray served as a Private, first in the Queen’s Own Oxfordshire Hussars (Service No. 3404), and then in the 1st/4th Battalion of the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (Service No. 203321). He was killed in action in Belgium at the age of 30 on 17 August 1917 and has no known grave.

 

He is remembered on the Tyne Cot Memorial (Panels 96 to 98) and on the Roll of Honour of All Saints’ Church, Highfield.

 

Left: Photograph of Donald Murray’s name on the Tyne Cot Memorial in Belgium, kindly supplied by British War Graves.