Dictionary of Irish Architects 1720 - 1940

Irish architect practising in Liverpool, Coventry and London. James Murray, who was born in Armagh on 9 December 1831, left Ireland for England at an early age. He was articled to Walter Scott in Liverpool from 1845 and practised in Liverpool in partnership with Thomas Denville Barry, also Irish born, and in Coventry on his own account before entering into partnership with EDWARD WELBY PUGIN  EDWARD WELBY PUGIN in London in 1856. The partnership came to an end in 1858,(1) and Murray subsequently returned to Coventry. The English census of 1861 records him as living in Conventry with his Cheshire-born wife, Maria, their son, James, and their two daughters, Marguerite and Ethel. He died in Conventry, aged thirty-two, on 24 October 1863 and was buried in Coventry cemetery 'according to the rites of the Roman Catholic church, of which he was always a member'. Shortly before his death he published what was intended to be the first part of a collection of his works under the title Modern architecture; ecclesiastical, civil and domestic. Illustrated by views and plans of Gothic and classic buildings erected since 1850. A number of Murray's works in England, many of them churches, are listed in his obituary in the Dublin Builder. He appears to have been connected with only two Irish buildings: while he was in partnership with Pugin, he was involved in designs for Our Lady's Convent at Bantry, Cork,(2) and in 1859, independently of Pugin, he submitted an entry in the competition for the church of Saints Peter and Paul, Cork.(3)

See WORKS; see also works of PUGIN & PUGIN & amp; MURRAY. S MURRAY. S ee BIBLIOGRAPHY. BIBLIOGRAPHY.



References

All information in this entry is from Directory of British Architects 1834-1914 (RIBA 2001), II, 234, and from the obituary of Murray in DB 5, 15 Nov 1862, 186, taken from the Building News; the slightly abbreviated version of this obituary which appears in B 21, 14 Nov 1863, 807-808, forms the basis of the entries on Murray in DNB and APSD.


(1) He is described as 'late of the firm of Pugin and Murray' in a description of his design for Fillongley vicarage, Warwickshire, in Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal 22 (Jan 1859), 1.
(2) Alexandra Wedgwood, Catalogue of the Drawings Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects: the Pugin family (1977), 117.
(3) Designs exhibited RA 1859, Nos. 1062,1100, wrongly listed by Graves under the name of James Murray (1819-98) of London; for a further account of this competition, which asserts that Murray's design was rejected 'because, it is said, he had some difference with Mr Pugin', see DB 1, 1 May 1859, 59-60.


2 work entries listed in chronological order for MURRAY, JAMES [2]


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Building: CO. CORK, BANTRY, CONVENT OF MERCY
Date: 1859
Nature: Unexecuted (competition?) design for convent buildings and chapel. With E.W. Pugin.
Refs: Photograph of perspective of entrance front in Victoria & Albert Museum, RIBA drawings collection, PB244/13, see A. Wedgwood, Catalogue of the Drawings Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects: the Pugin Family (RIBA, 1977), 117, and British Architectural Library Catalogue, http://riba.sirsidynix.net.uk/uhtbin/cgisirsi/eqehcYFB3a/MAIN_CAT/124810006/9 (last visited Apr 2009). 

Building: CO. CORK, CORK, SS. PETER & PAUL PLACE, CHURCH OF SS. PETER & PAUL (RC)
Date: 1859
Nature: Competition entrant.
Refs: RA 1859, nos. 1062,1100; B 17, 9 Apr 1859, 258; DB 1, 1 May 1859, 59-60;  Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal 22 (Jun 1859), 179.

Author Title Date Details
Murray, James Modern architecture; ecclesiastical, civil and domestic. Illustrated by views and plans of Gothic and classic buildings erected since 1850. 1862 Coventry, 1862. (Intended as first part of a larger work)