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Walter Murdoch
Sir Walter Logie Forbes Murdoch, KCMG (17 September 1874 – 30 July 1970) was a prominent Australian academic and essayist famous for his intelligence and wit. He was a founding professor of English and former Chancellor of the University of Western Australia (UWA) in Perth, Western Australia.
A member of the prominent Australian Murdoch family, he was the father of Catherine, later prominent as Dr Catherine King MBE (1904–2000), a radio broadcaster in Western Australia; the uncle of both Sir Keith, a journalist and newspaper executive, and Ivon, a soldier in the Australian Army; and the great-uncle of international media proprietor Rupert Murdoch.
Murdoch University is named in Sir Walter's honour; as is Murdoch, the suburb surrounding its main campus, located in Perth, Western Australia.
Murdoch was born on 17 September 1874 at Rosehearty, Scotland to Rev. James Murdoch, minister of the Free Church of Scotland, and his wife Helen, née Garden, and he was the youngest of their 14 children. He spent his first decade at Rosehearty and in England and France, and arrived with his family in Melbourne in 1884. He attended Camberwell Grammar School and Scotch College. At the University of Melbourne, as a member of Ormond College, he earned first-class honours in logic and philosophy.
After teaching in country and suburban schools to the end of 1903, Murdoch's academic career began with appointment as a Melbourne University assistant lecturer in English. This was in what had virtually become a combined department under the classics professor T. G. Tucker. Murdoch published his first essay, "The new school of Australian poets", in 1899, and he continued writing for the Argus, under the pen-name of "Elzevir", in a column which appeared weekly from 1905 titled "Books and Men". On 22 December 1897 at Hawthorn, Melbourne, Murdoch married Violet Catherine Hughston, also a teacher.
In 1911, Murdoch was passed over in favour of an overseas applicant, Sir Robert Wallace, for the re-created independent chair of English at Melbourne University. Murdoch spent the next year as a full-time member of the Argus literary staff and was then selected as a founding professor of UWA. He commenced lectures in 1913 in tin sheds in the heart of Perth.
The literary and other friendships formed in Melbourne still exerted a strong nostalgic influence upon the middle-aged Murdoch. This has been established by his warmly sympathetic, but not uncritical, biographer John La Nauze; but the fact that he felt deeply his geographical and intellectual isolation in Perth was not evident to even his close associates there. Through the inter-war years, Murdoch broadened his influence upon Australian life—most noticeably within the western state but extending throughout the Commonwealth. On the young campus, he had a considerable following outside his own department and his immediate academic colleagues. Murdoch was known for his help to students and junior colleagues in difficulties.
Sympathy for underdogs and a willingness to champion lost causes extended beyond Murdoch's academic environment. It coloured his second major contribution to Western Australian life: his association with several other members of the foundation professoriate in building closer links between the university and the community. His most effective medium was the column he contributed to the "Life and Letters" page of the West Australian on alternate Saturday mornings.
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Walter Murdoch
Sir Walter Logie Forbes Murdoch, KCMG (17 September 1874 – 30 July 1970) was a prominent Australian academic and essayist famous for his intelligence and wit. He was a founding professor of English and former Chancellor of the University of Western Australia (UWA) in Perth, Western Australia.
A member of the prominent Australian Murdoch family, he was the father of Catherine, later prominent as Dr Catherine King MBE (1904–2000), a radio broadcaster in Western Australia; the uncle of both Sir Keith, a journalist and newspaper executive, and Ivon, a soldier in the Australian Army; and the great-uncle of international media proprietor Rupert Murdoch.
Murdoch University is named in Sir Walter's honour; as is Murdoch, the suburb surrounding its main campus, located in Perth, Western Australia.
Murdoch was born on 17 September 1874 at Rosehearty, Scotland to Rev. James Murdoch, minister of the Free Church of Scotland, and his wife Helen, née Garden, and he was the youngest of their 14 children. He spent his first decade at Rosehearty and in England and France, and arrived with his family in Melbourne in 1884. He attended Camberwell Grammar School and Scotch College. At the University of Melbourne, as a member of Ormond College, he earned first-class honours in logic and philosophy.
After teaching in country and suburban schools to the end of 1903, Murdoch's academic career began with appointment as a Melbourne University assistant lecturer in English. This was in what had virtually become a combined department under the classics professor T. G. Tucker. Murdoch published his first essay, "The new school of Australian poets", in 1899, and he continued writing for the Argus, under the pen-name of "Elzevir", in a column which appeared weekly from 1905 titled "Books and Men". On 22 December 1897 at Hawthorn, Melbourne, Murdoch married Violet Catherine Hughston, also a teacher.
In 1911, Murdoch was passed over in favour of an overseas applicant, Sir Robert Wallace, for the re-created independent chair of English at Melbourne University. Murdoch spent the next year as a full-time member of the Argus literary staff and was then selected as a founding professor of UWA. He commenced lectures in 1913 in tin sheds in the heart of Perth.
The literary and other friendships formed in Melbourne still exerted a strong nostalgic influence upon the middle-aged Murdoch. This has been established by his warmly sympathetic, but not uncritical, biographer John La Nauze; but the fact that he felt deeply his geographical and intellectual isolation in Perth was not evident to even his close associates there. Through the inter-war years, Murdoch broadened his influence upon Australian life—most noticeably within the western state but extending throughout the Commonwealth. On the young campus, he had a considerable following outside his own department and his immediate academic colleagues. Murdoch was known for his help to students and junior colleagues in difficulties.
Sympathy for underdogs and a willingness to champion lost causes extended beyond Murdoch's academic environment. It coloured his second major contribution to Western Australian life: his association with several other members of the foundation professoriate in building closer links between the university and the community. His most effective medium was the column he contributed to the "Life and Letters" page of the West Australian on alternate Saturday mornings.