[1] He was the son of Lord Murray, a Senator of the College of Justice, and his wife Annie Florence Nicolson.

[3] In 1929 he attended Oriel College, Oxford, and the Agricultural Economics Research Institute (AERI) until 1932.

He died on 10 October 1993 and is buried with his parents and siblings in Warriston Cemetery in north Edinburgh.

[1] On his retirement from the rectorship, Rab Butler, the then-Chancellor of the Exchequer, appointed him chairman of the University Grants Committee, a post he held for a decade.

He was chairman of the Committee of Enquiry into the Governance of the University of London (1970–72) which produced the Murray Report.