Charles Murray, 7th Earl of Dunmore

"Charlie". Caricature by Spy published in Vanity Fair in 1878.

Charles Adolphus Murray, 7th Earl of Dunmore VD (24 March 1841 – 27 August 1907), styled Viscount Fincastle from birth until 1845, was a Scottish peer and Conservative politician.

Background

Fincastle was the eldest son of Alexander Murray, 6th Earl of Dunmore and his wife, Catherine.^[1] His maternal grandmother was the Russian noblewoman Countess Catherine Woronzoff (or Vorontsova), daughter of the Russian ambassador to St James's, Semyon Romanovich Vorontsov.

Career

In 1874, he was appointed a Lord-in-Waiting in Disraeli's government, a post he held until 1880. In 1875, he was made Lord Lieutenant of Stirlingshire, which he remained until 1885. In 1882 he was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the 1st Inverness-shire Rifle Volunteers (later the 1st Volunteer Battalion, Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders). He retired in 1896. In 1892–93 he traveled through the eastern Pamirs to Kashgar. He was apparently engaged in some form of diplomacy or espionage, but the matter is not clear.^[2]

Family

Lord Dunmore married Lady Gertrude Coke, third daughter of Thomas Coke, 2nd Earl of Leicester, on 5 April 1866.^[1] They had five children:

• Alexander Edward, styled Viscount Fincastle, later 8th Earl of Dunmore (1871–1962)
• Lady Evelyn Cobbold (1867–1963), married John Dupuis Cobbold.
• Lady Muriel (d. 1946), married Harold Gore Browne.
• Lady Grace (1873–1960), married William James Barry, Esq.
• Lady Victoria Alexandrina (1877–1925), married Alfred Templer, 27th Baron Templer (1868-1952)
• Lady Mildred (1878–1969), married (1) Gilbert Follet, (2) Sir John FitzGerald, 3rd Baronet.
• Lady Debra (1910-1999), married Jose Cabrera (1906-1969)

Works

• The Pamirs: Being a Narrative of a Year's Expedition on Horseback and on Foot Through Kashmir, Western Tibet, Chinese Tartary, and Russian Central Asia, Volume 1 (1894)
• The Revelation of Christianus and Other Christian Science Poems" (University Press, 1901)^[3]

Notes

1. Fryer 1912.
2. Robert Middleton and Hew Thomas, 'Tajikistan and the High Pamirs', 2008
3. https://books.google.com/books?id=cFUuAAAAYAAJ&dq=inauthor:%22Charles+Adolphus+Murray+Dunmore+(7th+earl+of)%22&source=gbs_navlinks_s

References

•  Fryer, Sydney Ernest (1912). "Murray, Charles Adolphus". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement​. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
• S. E. Fryer, rev. Elizabeth Baigent. "Murray, Charles Adolphus, seventh earl of Dunmore (1841–1907)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/35156. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

External links

• Works by or about Charles Murray, 7th Earl of Dunmore at Internet Archive
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Earl of Dunmore