Arthur Murray, 3rd Viscount Elibank

Who was Arthur Murray, 3rd Viscount Elibank?

Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Cecil Murray, 3rd Viscount Elibank CMG DSO was a British army officer and politician.

Murray was the fourth son of Viscount Elibank of Selkirkshire and his wife Blanche Alice née Scott of Portsea, Portsmouth, Hampshire. The family moved to Dresden in Germany in 1886, and he received his early education in the city. He entered the Royal Military College Sandhurst and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Indian Staff Corps in 1898. He was promoted to full lieutenant in 1900. In the same year he became Aide-de-Camp to the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, Sir John Woodburn. He served as part of the international force that intervened to suppress the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900 and commanded a Mounted Infantry Company, protecting the Sinho-Shanhaikwan Railway. He subsequently served on the North-West Frontier and in Chitral. In 1907 he was promoted to captain in the 5th Gurkha Rifles.

In March 1908 the member of parliament for John William Crombie for Kincardinshire died, and Murray was selected by the Liberal Party to contest the resulting by-election.