A VERY POSH PUB LANDLORD
The Murray Clan Society
Added on 29 November 2024
The man who made his name via the rough-hewn, man-of-the-people, The Pub Landlord, Al Murray's family were wealthy aristocrats: his grandmother was an Austrian countess, and he is a descendant of John Murray, the 3rd Duke of Atholl. The stand-up comedian-turned parliamentary candidate, Al Murray was born at Stewkley, Buckinghamshire, only son of Lieutenant Colonel Ingram Bernard Hay Murray (a great-great-great-great-grandson of John Murray, 3rd Duke of Atholl, who married Charlotte, Baroness Strange), and Juliet Anne Thackeray, née Ritchie (a great-great-granddaughter of William Makepeace Thackeray). His grandfather, the diplomat Sir Ralph Murray, was of Scottish nobility and married into the von Kuenburg family, aristocrats from Austria. Murray was educated at Bedford School before going up to St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, graduating with the degree of MA in Modern History. At Oxford he performed in the comedy group, the Oxford Revue in a show directed by Stewart Lee.
Behind his comic alter ego, Al Murray turns out to be well connected. The truth is that the baldheaded, beer-bellied, foulmouthed Cockney landlord that we see on our TV screens is a world away from Alistair James Hay Murray, the well-spoken, public school-educated intellectual who is more often seen with a cup of Earl Grey rather than a pint of London Pride. The man behind the man behind the bar is the only son of Lieutenant Colonel Ingram Bernard Hay Murray, himself a great-great-great-great-grandson of John Murray, the 3rd Duke of Atholl. More importantly perhaps the duke's wife, the former 8th Baroness Strange, came into a lump sum of almost £11 million in today's money and an income of £400,000 a year after selling the sovereignty of the Isle of Man to the British government in 1765.