MURRAY, John (d.1753), of Philiphaugh, Selkirk.

Unable as hereditary sheriff to stand for the county, John Murray, whose family acquired their Philiphaugh estates in the fifteenth century, entered Parliament for Linlithgow Burghs, which included the burgh of Selkirk, at a contested by-election in 1725. Re-elected unopposed in 1727, he voted with the Administration till 1734, when he went into opposition, voting against Walpole on the repeal of the Septennial Act. Resigning the sheriffdom in favour of one of his sons, he was returned in 1734 for the county, where he was unopposed till his death. Continuing to vote with the Opposition, he received a circular letter in September 1737 from Lord Marchmont, urging the attendance of opposition Members at the opening of the new session.1HMC Polwarth, v. 142. He remained in opposition till Walpole’s fall, after which he obtained a place for his eldest son as chamberlain of Ettrick forest.2Cal. Treas. Bks. and Pprs. 1742-5, p. 218. In the list of Members to be invited to the meeting of ministerial supporters at the Cockpit before the opening of the next session, he was put down to Lord Tweeddale, the secretary of state for Scotland, thereafter voting with the Government in all recorded divisions. He returned to opposition in 1747 when he was said to have ‘carried his election by one vote gained by Lord Marchmont’.3Argyll to Pelham, 1 Aug. 1747, Newcastle (Clumber) mss. (under Hume Campbell, Hugh, Lord Polwarth.) He died 2 July 1753.