Keith Murray, Baron Murray of Newhaven


Keith Anderson Hope Murray, Baron Murray of Newhaven, KCB was a British academic and Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford.

Education

Educated at Edinburgh Academy and the University of Edinburgh where he gained a BSc in Agriculture, Murray went into employment with the Ministry of Agriculture from 1925 to 1926. He was then awarded a Commonwealth Fund Fellowship, and spent three years at Cornell University where he was awarded a PhD.
In 1929 he attended Oriel College, Oxford, and the Agricultural Economics Research Institute until 1932.

Career

He became a Research Officer for the AERI, a post he held until 1944. In 1937, however, he was appointed a Fellow and Bursar of Lincoln College, Oxford, as well as being appointed by the University to Oxford City Council. On the death of the Rector J. A. R. Munro in 1944, he was elected to the Rectorship, a position he held until his retirement in 1953. He became the first Rector since Nathaniel Crew not to die in office.
On his retirement from the Rectorship, Rab Butler, the then-Chancellor of the Exchequer, appointed him Chairman of the University Grants Committee, a post he held for a decade.
In 1957, Sir Robert Menzies, the Australian Prime Minister, asked him to serve on the Committee on Australian Universities. He was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in the 1963 New Year Honours. He was Vice President of Wellington College, Honorary President of the National Union of Students.
He was Chairman of the Committee of Enquiry into the Governance of the University of London which produced the Murray Report. This led to the merger of several of the constituent colleges of the university such as Royal Holloway College and Bedford College under the leadership of their principals Dr Roy Miller and Professor Dorothy Wedderburn.
He was Chancellor of Southampton University from 1964–74.
He was Chairman of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851.
He held Honorary Fellowships of Downing College, Cambridge, Oriel College, Oxford, Birkbeck College, London, and Lincoln College, Oxford. On 17 September 1964, he was created a life peer as Baron Murray of Newhaven, of Newhaven in the County and City of Edinburgh.
The Keith Murray Senior Scholarship at Lincoln College is named in his memory.

Arms