SIR HUBERT MURRAY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 May 1940, Page 6

SIR HUBERT MURRAY

GREAT COLONIAL GOVERNOR. Sir Hubert Murray, who died a few weeks ago, as Governor of Papua some ip years after lie had reached the retiring age, was one of the most remarkable men in the Colonial service—in this case the Australian service, for he was appointed by the Government of Australia, notes “Janus,” writing in the Spectator. He stayed on in Papua because the natives refused to let him go. He had been their friend even more than their Governor. He had made a lifelong study of native customs, in particular of the various varieties of witchcraft, and his annual reports were mines of information on local anthropology. A strange career for a man who took firsts in Mods and Greats al Oxford in the middle eighties and won a medal with four clasps in the South African War. Papua is far away, and Murray's roots were in Australia, not in England. Otherwise he would bo widely known, as he should bo. as one of the greatest Colonial Governors of our time.