John Murray (Victorian politician)

Categories: 1851 births | 1916 deaths | Premiers of Victoria

John Murray (8 July 1851 - 4 May 1916), Australian politician, was the 23rd Premier of Victoria. He was born near Koroit, Victoria, the son of Scottish immigrants. When he was a child his parents settled on a farm near Warrnambool in the Western District of Victoria. Murray inherited it from them and lived there all his life. He married Alice Bateman and had six children.

Murray was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly for Warrnambool in 1884. A typical rural conservative, he was Chief Secretary and Minister for Labour in the government of William Irvine from 1902 to 1904, and President of the Board of Land and Works and Commissioner of Crown Lands in the government of Thomas Bent from 1904 to 1906. After 1907, however, Murray emerged as the leader of a country faction of Bent's Liberal Party which opposed his free-spending policies. In January 1909 he successfully moved a motion of no-confidence in Bent's government and succeeded him as Premier, also becoming Chief Secretary and Minister for Labour.

Although the Labor Party won the 1910 federal elections, it remained much weaker in Victoria than in other states, and at the 1911 state elections Murray's Liberals were re-elected with 43 seats to Labor's 20. But conflict between rural and urban factions of the Liberal Party remained chronic, with the urban leader William Watt undermining Murray just as Murray had undermined Bent. By May 1912 Murray had had enough and resigned. He then accepted office as Chief Secretary in Watt's government from 1912 to 1913 and again from 1913 to 1915. He died in Warrnambool in 1916.

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Premiers of Victoria

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