Robert William Skinner Murray
Royal Army Medical Corp
Died 6 May 1919 age 32
Capt. R.W. Murray – R.A.M.C.

Robert William Skinner Murray was born at Woodside, Aberdeen on 23 May 1886, younger son of John Murray, grocer, draper, JP, Chairman of the local School Board, and his wife Elizabeth. The Murrays were in Kincardine O’Neil from at least 1891, living at “Murray’s Buildings”. He went to school first at Kincardine O’Neil, then Robert Gordons College from the age of thirteen. Following in the footsteps of his older brother John who was six years ahead of him, Robert studied medicine at the University of Aberdeen. He graduated MB in 1912 (aged 25) and obtained a Diploma in Public Health in 1913.
In May 1914, Robert Murray was house surgeon at the Tunbridge Wells General Hospital. He joined the Royal Army Medical Corps in October 1914, was commissioned as a Lieutenant, and sent to Millbank for a special course in sanitation, then to Llandudno lecturing to troops, before being sent to France in May 1915 when he was promoted to the rank of Captain. Soon after the Battle of Loos, he was wounded and sent home. Possibly this enabled him to attend his father’s funeral in February 1916 along with his brother John, then in private practice in Middlesborough, before he was despatched to Egypt in May 1916. He served in Egypt and Palestine and survived the Armistice when he transferred to the Royal Air Force, attending no. 5 Fighting School, only to succumb to bronchial pneumonia in Cairo on 6 May 1919 aged 32.
Capt. Murray is buried at the UK Cairo War Memorial Cemetery. He is also commemorated in the old churchyard of Kincardine O’Neil beside the west outside wall of the ruined kirk.
Sources
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Register of births
Censuses 1891-1911
Robert Gordons College Roll of Honour
University of Aberdeen Roll of Honour
University of Aberdeen Roll of Service in the Great War 1914-1919 Edited by Mabel Desborough Allardyce (AUP 1921)
Aberdeen University Review Vol VI page 278 – obituary
City of Aberdeen Roll of Honour
Aberdeen Journal 29 March 1912
Aberdeen Journal 9 July 1913
Kent and Sussex Courier 29 May 1914- emergency admission of a child.
Aberdeen Journal 4 March 1915 –temporary RAMC commission in the regular army
Aberdeen Weekly Journal 13 August 1915 – promoted to Captain from 28 May 1915, serving in one of the general hospitals in France
Aberdeen Journal 4 and 10 February 1916 – obituary and funeral of father
Aberdeen Journal 14 May 1919 – service and death in Egypt
Aberdeen Weekly Journal 16 May 1919
Old churchyard Kincardine O’Neil
[War Office file destroyed]