Duke of Atholl now stays in the Soutpansberg

The Duke of Atholl now resides in the Soutpansberg. This follows after the death last Tuesday of John Murray, the former Duke of Atholl, who stayed in Haenertsburg near Tzaneen. The title has been passed on to his son, Bruce Murray of Louis Trichardt.

During a memorial service held in Haenertsburg last Friday, family members and friends paid their respects to a very remarkable citizen of Limpopo. Very few of the region’s inhabitants were even aware of the fact that this modest man was colonel in the only private army in Europe.

John Murray was born in Johannesburg in 1929 to a retired officer father and a pioneering family mother. He grew up in the mountains of The Downs, in the Wolkberg, and his parents nurtured his love of nature from a very early age.  He attended prep school in Parktown and completed his high school career at Michael House.

“Evidently he was not all brains and daring and shortly after finishing his degree in engineering at Wits and Rhodes, he bumped into Peggy somewhere and they were married on 15 Dec 1956. Theirs was an exemplary, lasting partnership; the kind that we all envied and the obvious result of such a partnership are happy, healthy, naughty children, grandchildren and a great-grandson,” his son, Bruce, writes in an obituary.

“His chosen profession led him into remote areas of southern Africa where he left, unwittingly and obviously unintentionally, countless monuments to himself in the form of trig beacons which he built, roads, dams (like Kariba) and  farm boundaries which he surveyed and thousands of subdivisions in residential areas of our country. He led a life of true adventure, often having to run away from wild animals or sleep atop a trig beacon to avoid scorpions. His love of simple, beautiful things was always something to be admired as was his bountiful and varied knowledge and wisdom.”

John Murray was a man who didn’t need material wealth to prove success. It was therefore a huge shock to him to learn that he had inherited the title of 11th Duke of Atholl in 1996. “Rather reluctantly, but diligently and honorably, he did his duty. Being a man of such humble personality, he struggled with being in the limelight as it were, and experienced firsthand the rude and impersonal intrusion of the press into his very private life,” the obituary continues.

“However, at Blair castle, he immediately became the 'popular Duke', preferring to be called John by everyone, from the humblest shepherd to other loftily titled peers. He was especially popular with the officers and men of his personal bodyguard, the 150-year-old Atholl Highlanders, a regiment granted colors by Queen Victoria in 1845. His own military background was brief; a three-month stint in the Grahamstown Regiment, where he said his most memorable action was jumping off the back of a lorry, properly dressed in a kilt, in front of a line of school girls standing on the pavement. However, he persevered and successfully led the regiment on many parades over a period of 15 years.  He has left an indelible mark at Blair Castle and he will be sorely missed and fondly remembered by everyone who knew him."

News - Date: 25 May 2012

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