Charles Augustus Murray

Sir Charles Augustus Murray (22 November 1806 – 3 June 1895) was a British author and diplomat.

Early life

Murray was the second of three sons born to George Murray, 5th Earl of Dunmore, and the former Lady Susan Hamilton. His elder brother was Alexander Murray, 6th Earl of Dunmore who married Lady Catherine Herbert (daughter of the 11th Earl of Pembroke). His younger brother was the Hon. Henry Anthony Murray, a Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy, who died unmarried.

His paternal grandparents were the former Lady Charlotte Stewart (a daughter of Alexander Stewart, 6th Earl of Galloway) and John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, the former colonial governor of the Province of New York and Virginia. His aunt, Lady Augusta Murray, married Prince Augustus Frederick, a younger son of King George III. His maternal grandparents were Archibald Hamilton, 9th Duke of Hamilton and the former Lady Harriet Stewart (a daughter of Alexander Stewart, 6th Earl of Galloway). Among his maternal relatives were aunts Lady Anne Hamilton (lady-in-waiting to Queen Caroline), and Lady Charlotte Hamilton (wife of the 11th Duke of Somerset) and uncles, Alexander Hamilton, 10th Duke of Hamilton and Lord Archibald Hamilton.

He was educated at Eton College and Oriel College, Oxford, where he matriculated in 1824, and graduated B.A. in 1827.

Murray spent several years travelling across Europe and America from 1835 and 1838, including several months with a Pawnee tribe in 1835. He described his experiences in his popular book Travels in North America (1839). There he fell in love with Elizabeth "Elise" Wadsworth, a daughter of New York landowner James Wadsworth who disapproved of the match. He attempted to remain in the United States as Secretary of the British Legation, but failed to obtain the position. He returned to England, and wrote of his experiences in a novel, The Prairie-Bird (1844).