Robert Murray (financier)

[4] He assigned his interest in the postal scheme to Dockwra; but later it was adjudged to pertain to James, Duke of York, as a branch of the general post office, by the King's Bench.

[10] In the mid-1690s Murray was proposing a "land bank", an idea up in the air at the time and also promoted by Chamberlen and John Briscoe.

[11] His ideas for paying off the national debt over a decade, aided by a malt tax, attracted attention.

In August 1697 he had been active in the malt tax proposals in parliament, and was then in custody in a sponging house near St. Clement's Church.

)[4] Lotteries had been prohibited under William III and Mary II, but from 1709 onwards the government resorted to them as a means of raising money.

In 1714 exchequer bills had been issued to the amount of £1,400,000 but lottery prizes were offered in addition to interest in the shape of annuities.

In 1721, after a memorial from Murray, the South Sea Company proposed to discharge the unsubscribed orders into their own capital stock.

[13] Murray is credited with developing an idea of Israel Tonge of copybooks for teaching children to read.