Among his siblings was Sir Evan Macgregor, a civil servant who was Permanent Secretary to the Admiralty from 1884 to 1907.
[1] Murray-Macgregor succeeded to the baronetcy and the chieftaincy on his father's death on 11 May 1851;[1][3] Sir John had arrived in the British Virgin Islands less two months earlier to take up his appointment as the colony's president.
[1] In 1869, he was awarded a medal by the Royal Humane Society for saving the life of a seaman who had been drowning off the West coast of Africa.
[6] He was not active politically, but held a number of offices in Perthshire, where he was a magistrate, a commissioner of supply and chairman of the School and Parochial Boards.
[1] Together, they were the parents of five children:[7] A photograph of Murray-Macgregor by Camille Silvy (1860) is in the National Portrait Gallery's collections (NPG Ax50422).