Death Of H. G. Murray

Of Witu

THE death occurred suddenly in Sydney on May 3, of a well-known and respected member of New Guinea’s planting community—Mr. Harry Gregory Murray, of Witu.

Mr. Murray had come to Sydney to take delivery of a ketch for Langu Plantation He had been ill in bed for some days with what he believed to be malaria, and on the day of his death he got up with the intention of leaving with the ketch for New Guinea the following day. He suddenly collapsed and died; post-mortem finding was that he had died as a result of pneumonia.

Mr. Murray went to New Guinea as a clerk for Lurns Philp and Company, 27 years ago. Later, he became a plantation manager and at the time of the Japanese invasion of New Guinea was on Bali Plantation in the Witu Group. He was a member of the party that reached Australia in the Lakatoi about Easter 1942 (the full story of how the remnants of the Rabaul garrison were saved from the jungle and the Japs by a handful of New Guinea civilians, and untimately reached Australia in the small inter island ship Lakatoi, was told in the PIM in 1946 by Mr. J. K. McCarthy, now District Officer at Rabaul).

After Murray had recovered from this adventure he enlisted in ANGAU and with the rank of Captain served in the Nadzab area.

After the war he returned to Bali for 12 months but after Mrs. Gladys Baker’s death about two years ago he leased her Witu plantation, Langu.

He was 49 at the time of his death. He is survived by his wife, Mrs. E. J. Murray, who was at Langu when he died. She intends to carry on at the plantation for the time being.

Mr. and Mrs. Michael Adams, of Fiji, and their small daughter Jane, arrived in Sydney in May, on holiday.