Murray was born in Hadley, Shropshire, the son of a young unmarried woman, Lorna Hodskinson, and was brought up by a local nurse, Mary Jane Chilton.
[2] He attended Wellington Grammar School, read English at Queen Mary College, London, and then joined the British Army.
[3] In the Second World War Murray was commissioned in the King's Shropshire Light Infantry in April 1943 and took part in the Normandy landings on D-Day.
Determined to improve himself, shortly afterwards Murray gained a place at New College, Oxford, where he graduated with a First in PPE after two years' study under tutors including the future MP Dick Crossman and Sir John Hicks.
[8] Sworn of the Privy Council in 1976,[9] he was created a life peer as Baron Murray of Epping Forest, of Telford in the County of Shropshire, on 14 February 1985.