35 Facts About Gilbert Murray

George Gilbert Aime Murray was an Australian-born British classical scholar and public intellectual, with connections in many spheres.

Gilbert Murray was an outstanding scholar of the language and culture of Ancient Greece, perhaps the leading authority in the first half of the twentieth century.

Gilbert Murray is the basis for the character of Adolphus Cusins in his friend George Bernard Shaw's play Major Barbara, and appears as the chorus figure in Tony Harrison's play Fram.

Gilbert Murray served as President of the Ethical Union from 1929 to 1930 and was a delegate at the inaugural World Humanist Congress in 1952 which established Humanists International.

Gilbert Murray was a leader of the League of Nations Society and the League of Nations Union, which promoted the League of Nations in Britain.

Gilbert Murray was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and St John's College, Oxford.

Gilbert Murray distinguished himself in writing in Greek and Latin: he won all the prizes awarded by Oxford.

From 1889 to 1899, Gilbert Murray was Professor of Greek at the University of Glasgow.

Gilbert Murray had published his own journal, called the Hibbert Journal.

Gilbert Murray is perhaps now best known for his verse translations of Greek drama, which were popular and prominent in their time.

Gilbert Murray had earlier experimented with his own prose dramas, without much success.

Gilbert Murray was one of the scholars associated with Jane Harrison in the myth-ritual school of mythography.

Gilbert Murray wrote an appendix on the Orphic tablets for her 1903 book Prolegomena; he later contributed to her Themis.

Gilbert Murray was a lifelong supporter of the Liberal Party, lining up on the Irish Home Rule and non-imperialist sides of the splits in the party of the late nineteenth century.

Gilbert Murray supported temperance, and married into a prominent Liberal, aristocratic and temperance family, the Carlisles.

Gilbert Murray made a number of moves that might have taken him into parliamentary politics, initially by tentative thoughts about standing in elections during the 1890s.

Gilbert Murray stood five times unsuccessfully for the University of Oxford constituency between 1919 and 1929.

Gilbert Murray continued support for the Asquith faction of Liberals, after the party was split again by Lloyd George.

Gilbert Murray never took a pacifist line himself, broke an old friendship with Bertrand Russell early in the war, and supported British intervention in the Suez Crisis.

Gilbert Murray was involved as an internationalist in the League of Nations.

Gilbert Murray was a vice-president of the League of Nations Society from 1916, and in 1917 wrote influential articles in The Daily News.

Gilbert Murray was an influential member of the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation of the League from 1922 to 1939, being its president from 1928 to 1939.

Wells applied through the British propaganda office with which Gilbert Murray had been connected since 1914.

Wells was bullish about pushing ahead with a British LFNA, Gilbert Murray was involved already in the League of Nations Society, though not active.

Gilbert Murray identified as a humanist, and even served as a President of the British Ethical Union.

Gilbert Murray joined the Rationalist Press Association, and in 1952 was a delegate to the inaugural World Humanist Congress which founded Humanists International.

Gilbert Murray wrote and broadcast extensively on religion ; and wrote several books dealing with his version of humanism, which he espoused as a naturalistic philosophy, contrasted with Christianity and revealed religion in general.

Gilbert Murray was President of the British Ethical Union from 1929 to 1930.

Gilbert Murray was baptised as a Roman Catholic; his father was a Catholic, his mother a Protestant.

Gilbert Murray did not raise his own children to be religious.

Gilbert Murray refused a knighthood in 1912, though he was appointed to the Order of Merit in 1941.

Gilbert Murray received honorary degrees from Glasgow, Birmingham, and Oxford.

Gilbert Murray gave the 1914 Shakespeare Lecture of the British Academy.

Gilbert Murray married Lady Mary Henrietta Howard, daughter of George Howard, 9th Earl of Carlisle.

Gilbert Murray became an enduring friend of the boys and an unfinished letter to her was found on Gilbert's body after the accident.