Walter George Tait Murray was born in Lanark, Lanarkshire, Scotland, on the 20th November 1910, the son of James (Jim) Tait and Margaret Murray (née Gray). His father was a tram conductor with Glasgow Corporation Tramways at the time of his birth.
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, Walter Murray’s mother decided to take him back to Lanark, Lanarkshire, in Scotland, where she had been born and where his grandmother still lived. The purpose of the visit was to see his grandmother Mrs. Gray and also to take a holiday.
Consequently, Walter and his mother, accompanied by Elizabeth Young, the wife of Charles Young, boarded the Lusitania at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 in New York port with a third class ticket numbered 168802, before the Cunarder sailed out of the North River for the very last time, at 12.27 p.m., on 1st May 1915. She had been scheduled to leave at 10.00 a.m. but had to postpone this departure to embark passengers, some of the crew and the cargo from the Anchor Lines vessel Cameronia, which the British Admiralty had requisitioned for use as a troop ship.
All three killed, six days later, however, when the ship was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20, twelve miles off the coast of Ireland and only hours away from her Liverpool destination. As none of their bodies was ever recovered and identified, they have no known graves. Walter Murray was aged a mere 4½ 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 NO AMONG SURVIVORS AND BODIES NOT YET RECOVERED.
The name William Murray was a mistake as it was James Murray in Chicago who had initiated the enquiry.
Another source states that mother and son had left for their final voyage from 6853 South Green Street, Memphis, Tennessee.
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.
Walter’s father, James “Jim” Murray, died in Illinois in May 1954.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 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.