Margaret Gray was born in Carnwath, Lanarkshire, Scotland, on the 12th August 1889, the daughter of James and Christina Gray (née Aitken). Her father was a coal miner. Following the completion of her education, Margaret found employment as a domestic servant. On the 22nd June 1910, she married James (Jim) Tait Murray, who was at that time, a conductor, employed by Glasgow Corporation Tramways.
After their marriage, the couple lived in Glasgow, Lanarkshire, during which time they had a son, whom they named Walter George Tait Murray. In September 1911, Jim Murray, his younger brother, Peter, and their friend, Charles Young, went to New York on board the S.S. Cameronia. In 1912, Margaret and Walter travelled to New York to join James, before the family moved to Jersey City, New Jersey, and then Chicago, Illinois, where Mr. Murray secured a job in his old occupation of tram conductor.
In the spring of 1915, Margaret Murray decided to go back to Lanark, Lanarkshire, with Walter, on a holiday and to visit her mother. Accompanying them on the voyage was Elizabeth Young, Charles Young’s wife, who had joined her husband when she
travelled from Scotland to New York with James and Peter Murray’s sister, Jeanie, in 1913. All three were booked on the Lusitania as third class passengers, and boarded the vessel at Pier 54 in New York, on 1st May 1915, in time for her delayed sailing just after mid-day. The delay was caused because she had to wait whilst she loaded cargo and embarked crew and passengers from the Anchor Lines ship Cameronia which had been requisitioned by the British Admiralty as a troop ship. Their ticket number was 168802.
Six days later, all three were dead - killed after the Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk, by the German submarine U-20, off the coast of southern Ireland and only about 250 miles away from the safety of her Liverpool home port. No sign of any of their bodies was ever recovered and identified afterwards. Margaret Murray was aged 25 years.
On 25th May 1915, however, the Cunard office at Queenstown received the following cable: -
REFER TO YOUR CABLEGRAM N.Y. NINETEENTH. WILLIAM MURRAY CHICAGO AWAITING NEWS MARGARET MURRAY, WALTER MURRAY, FOUR YEARS, THIRD LUSITANIA.
Cunard at Queenstown had to reply on the following day: -
YOUR CABLE TWENTY-FIFTH MARGARET MURRAY AND WALTER MURRAY NOT AMONG SURVIVORS AND BODIES NOT YET RECOVERED.
William Murray was a mistake, as the cable was initiated by James Murray in Chicago.
Another source states that mother and son had left for their final voyage from 6853 South Green Street, Memphis, Tennessee, but the South Green Street address actually referred to her Chicago home.
A report in the Chicago Tribune newspaper, on the 9th May, stated that James Murray and Charles Young were maintaining a vigil at the Cunard office in Chicago, and were refusing to leave until they had word of their loved ones. The same newspaper, on the 11th May, stated that James Murray was carrying a photograph of Walter while waiting in the Cunard office.
Jim Murray married a widow, Margaret Keeley (née Wilson) in Chicago in 1917. Margaret, who had been born in Scotland, had been widowed in April 1917 and had five children by the time she married Jim. Jim and Margaret were parents to two children.
James “Jim” Murray died in Illinois in May 1954.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1891 Census of Scotland, 1901 Census of Scotland, 1911 Census of Scotland, New York Passenger Lists 1820 – 1957, Cunard Records, Carluke & Lanark Gazette, Daily Record, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv D92/2/404, UniLiv. PR13/6, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Graham Maddocks, Jack Murray Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.