File HMU/L/61/13 - Gilling West

Hugh Murray was a pre-eminent British historian of the city of York. He hated history at school but turned it into a second career after retiring from British Rail.

Murray was born in Hull, and was the fifth generation of railwaymen in his family. His father Donald was fish stock superintendent for the London and North East Railway (LNER).

He was educated at Brecon, St. Peter's School, York, and Jesus College, Oxford, where he read physics. He then joined British Rail, where he became divisional signals and telecommunications engineer at Norwich and later Leeds, and ultimately moved to York to spend 14 years as signals engineer for the Eastern Railways region. He continued living in York after retiring in 1988.

Murray amassed his own library containing thousands of books and photographs and had an encyclopaedic knowledge of York. In 2004, Murray was presented with a British Association for Local History award for personal achievement for his services to York's local history. He delivered more than 1,500 lectures, a local history course that ran for 15 years, and a popular guided walks programme. He had an impressive list of publications including articles in many local history and other journals, and published several books.

Murray was a leading member of the Yorkshire Architectural and York Archaeological Society, being chairman from 1991 to 2002, and was editor of Yorkshire Historian from 1984 to 2000. He was on the Council of Friends of York Minster and the York Civic Trust, and in the Yorkshire Heraldry Society. He had a particular interest in York Cemetery, which opened in 1837 and was rescued from ruin by an organisation of Friends. As a trustee, treasurer and administrator for many years, he created a database of all the burials which is now an invaluable research tool for other historians as well as people with relatives buried there.

Murry died of mesothelioma in 2013, from asbestos dust and fibres in workshops while he was a British Rail graduate signals apprentice in the mid-1950s.