John Murray Prior/Bertram Murray
If you enter 'John Murray Prior' into the NLA's wonderful search engine, Trove, you will get numerous references to various court cases. A few references call him John Murray-Prior but mostly the hyphen is omitted. His death certificate names John de M.[Montmorency?] Murray-Prior as his father; his mother as Nina J. Murray-Prior.1) The birth of his daughter Coralie de V. Murray-Prior (father John and mother Annie M-P), was registered in 19082). John Murray/Murray-Prior excelled in re-inventing himself so his family history is murky. Thomas B. M-P believed that he was a descendant of an illegitimate child of Thomas M-P (1773-1854) and an unidentified woman (after his wife Catherine died and before he took up with Mary Ann Thompson).3)
John, then calling himself Jack Prior, turned up to visit the Murray-Priors at Maroon in Queensland in 1882. Nora M-P wrote that they had discovered that he was a 'sad scapegrace. He came out the other day with a wild story about being married to an heiress but could not get anyone to lend him money on the strength of it. Tom [de M M-P] has been very good to him & talks of paying his passage to Sydney to get rid of him.'4). The next that was heard about him was in August 1882 when TLM-P visited an old friend Captain Willis in England. His wife Harriet 'talked a good deal about Jack Prior and his mother. Saw the photo of John in the 12th Lancer uniform. Harriet seems to have been very fond of her half brother and said he made much of Jack. I do not think she cared much about Mr J.P. Jack had written from Mackay that he was a sort of nigger driver and was getting 15/- per week. She was anxious about him and some time before his mother had received a letter written by him and address My dear wife, telling her to come out to him and bring £100? It seems evident that he had enclosed the mothers letter in the envelope addressed to her, but there was no clue who the wife if wife might be.
When TLM-P was in Sydney on his way to the Melbourne Exhibition, he wrote in his diary (23 July 1888):'Saw John de M. M. Prior at his office he asked me to go out and see his wife and child, did not care about it but as I had promised to do so some day, thought it best to have it over. Met at 6pm and went by train to Newtown. He is living in a very small house, good bedrooms, neatly furnished and comfortable. Saw his boy, in conversation gleaned that he had been married about 18 months at Melbourne where she has an Aunt. They must have come out in the same vessel. Jack is mysterious, has dropped the name Jack and his wife calls him Bertie. The baby is now 3 months old. There is no believing J. and no knowing what he is up to.' In a diary entry of 22 October 1888, TLM-P noted that he had received a letter from 'Jack M. Prior Address J. de M. M-P, Foleys Cottage, near Dunlops Hotel, Bondi, Sydney but makes no mention of the contents. Jack/Bertie/John's subsequent career fully confirms TLM-P's distrust.
By the time John Murray Prior died in 1933, he was referred to as Bertram Murray, formerly known as John Murray Prior. By then he was wealthy, lived in the prestigious Sydney suburb of Rose Bay, and was described as a 'financial agent'.5) NSW State Records, in its list of gaol photographs, states he was born in 1862 in England and migrated here, though he claimed not to known on which ship - it is so unlikely that someone who not know this detail that it suggests that he migrated using a false (or his real?) name. For his prison record with photograph, click on 2232_a006_a00619_17654000155r
John's major public scandal was widely reported in the newspapers throughout Australia in 1898. It involved his alleged abduction of 16-year-old Jessie Stewart McDonald. He was then around 37 years old, described as a money lender or 'financial agent', was separated from his wife and living with another woman. Jessie was employed as a nursemaid to John and the woman's baby and was reportedly seduced by him. Jessie herself repeatedly insisted that she had voluntarily entered into their sexual relationship.6) Her mother Annie McDonald insisted that her daughter had been forcibly abducted. The Court found John guilty, sentencing him to three years jail.7) John appealed but without success.8) At the same time, he was also in court accused of forgery.9) 1898 was quite a year for him and the wide publicity could only have mortified the family whose name he shared - or did he?
John continued to hit the headlines but only once again for a sexual misdemeanour. That exception was in 1902, around a year after he was released from jail, and this time it was a charge of indecent assault of a woman at Manly.10) The case against him was dismissed for lack of evidence.11)
In the early years of the 20th century, he was regularly in the courts - and newspapers - for his business dealings. They are too numerous to mention all, but the following examples give a flavour of the publicity. In 1902, he was charged with breaking and entering when recovering money owed him.12) He was acquitted13) though his assistants were also charged which gave the sensationalist newspaper The Truth the chance to produce the headline 'ALLEGED BREAKING AND ENTERING. MURRAY PRIOR AND HIS BUMS BEFORE THE BEAK [slang for judge].'14) In 1904, the newspapers loved it when an aggrieved debtor, a European Count, threatened to horsewhip him.15) According to family recollection, this incident was particularly embarrassing for Robert M-P who was then a young barrister trying to make his way in the legal world - the surname all too clearly indicated a connection.16) In 1908, there were again repeated headlines when he claimed that money he had lent a woman gave him an interest in her inheritance. By then his business name was A. B. Murray and Company.17)
By 1914, his business advertisements ran:
BERTRAM MURRAY, 37 ELIZABETH STREET (Between King and Hunter streets),SYDNEY, N.S.W.
For immediate advances on Wills, Bequests;or letters advising same.
Cash prior to and during collection. Send full particulars when writing.18) By 1918, 'Bertram M. Prior & Co' was a merchant company in debt; its proprietor called himself Bertram Ackroyd Murray-Prior.19)
In the 1920s and 1930s, the NSW Government Gazette has numerous notices that land he owned was being compulsorily sold due to unpaid rates: his actions do not appear to indicate a lack of money, and most pre-dated the Great Depression. The conclusion is that he did not think the land worth keeping.20)
John Murray Prior/Bertram Murray died on April 18, 1933, aged 72 years. He left a will that indicated complicated family arrangements, influential connections and philanthropic intent. It was sworn for probate purposes in NSW at £99,000 net and £100,000 gross. The list of beneficiaries included his widow, known both as Annie Murray and Annie/Anne Murray Prior, and their son Bertram A. Murray Prior (1888-1947), born a year before the alleged abduction of Jessie McDonald.21) Bertram A. M-P married Ida Lillian Cannis (?-2 August 1965) in August 1910 22)
There were also bequests to four solicitors, servants and to numerous others with well-known names (e.g. £500 to A. J. Vindin, Turramurra and £125 to Miss Windeyer, Double Bay). Two of the bequests may have been children he had with Jessie: they were to Jean McDonald of Edgecliff and Ronnie Macdonald of New Zealand. Charitable bequests included £400 to the Salvation Army, Sydney, and £350 each to the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and the Women's Hospital (Crown Street). Mrs Jessie Murray who shared his address at Rose Bay received a generous inheritance, more than his widow. Bequests which suggest a connection to the Murray-Priors were to his nephew John Brownrigg de Montmorency Prior [but note there was no Murray in his name unless this was a typo] of South Rhodesia and to three nieces (Nina, Teresian and Eileen, daughters of Harvey Murray Prior - note this is Harvey, not Hervey M-P, TLM-P's son.). His grandchildren, Swire de Montmorency M-P (d.20 December 1993) 23) and Adel Murray Prior, also received generous legacies.24) Adel trained as a nurse at the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, Sydney and in 1941 married Kevin Miles-Murphy.25) Swire married Phyllis Clare Rodgers (d.1997)26) - they had children.27)
So, who was John Murray Prior/Bertram Murray? 'Murray Prior' could easily be a second given name and surname as much as a single, later hyphenated surname. The addition of 'de Montmorency' may only indicate a desire to align with that powerful French family, as we have seen when discussing 'Air castles': Royalty and the Butler, Morres and Lodge families. Yet the strong possibility is that Thomas B. M-P was correct in thinking that John/Bertram was a descendent of an illegitimate child of TLM-P's grandfather Thomas.