William Henry Murray

Who was William Henry Murray?

The Scottish actor-manager William Henry Murray was a friend of Walter Scott particularly associated with dramatisations of Scott's Waverley Novels.

Born at Bath, he moved to Edinburgh in 1809 and worked there for over forty years as an actor, manager and dramatist. Around that time, he married Anne Dyke, the sister of tragedienne Mary Ann Duff, but she died soon after the marriage.He managed the Theatre Royal by the "North Bridge", at first jointly with Henry Siddons, then after 1816 on his own.

He was the son of the actor and dramatist Charles Murray, and grandson of the Jacobite Sir John Murray of Broughton who, when captured after the Battle of Culloden, saved his life by betraying his fellow Jacobites then lived out his life in Edinburgh as a haunted and hated figure. Walter Scott's father as a lawyer had professional dealings with the old man, but on one occasion after his wife brought tea, he afterwards threw the cup out the window saying, "Neither lip of me nor of mine comes after Murray of Broughton's." This incident may have later contributed to Scott's antiquarian interest in the family and friendship with William Henry Murray.