[3] The only son of Dr Nigel Ormiston Gauvain Murray (1944–2002) and his wife Shirley née Arbuthnot (born 1949), elder daughter and co-heiress of Commander Bernard Arbuthnot DSC,[4] scion of the Arbuthnot baronets, his matrilineal great-great-grandfather, Sir Henry Blake GCMG, was a British colonial administrator and Governor of Hong Kong who hailed from the Anglo-Irish gentry being seated at Myrtle Grove, County Cork.

[5][6] Of Scots patrilineal descent, his grandfather was Dr Ronald Murray MBE FRCPE,[7] a kinsman of the Duke of Atholl.

After graduating from the University of St Andrews with an undergraduate Master of Arts (MA Hons), Murray was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 2000.

for his family who claim ownership of the painting; even though the family did not remember owning the painting and presumably because they had realised its worth, Children Under a Palm by Winslow Homer, which had been found by a skip over 23 years earlier;[9] although determined to be genuine, who owns this work of art is still a matter of dispute.

[17] A Freeman of the City of London and a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Scriveners,[18] Lord Murray is a member of MCC and since 2002 serves on the ceremonial staff as an Esquire of the Order of St John.