Pte 26043 James Michael Murray

• Age: 26
• From: Dublin
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 18th Btn
• Died Friday 2nd March 1917
• Commemorated at: Agny New Military Cem
  Panel Ref: E.15

James Michael Murray was born 26th September 1890 in Dublin the son of Francis and Catherine (nee Reilly).  James was the eldest of five surviving children, all boys. He was baptised in St. Andrew's Church, Westland Row, Dublin, when he was three days old, his parents' residing at the time at 17 Fleet Street. Both parents were born in Dublin and the family were Roman Catholic.

At the time of the 1901 census they are living at 5.3 Chancery Street, Inns Quay, Dublin, which is court housing or tenements (Chancery Street was a Dublin slum, among the worst in the U.K.). His father Francis is 37, a labourer, his mother Catherine is 32.  James is 10, Bernard 9, Thomas 5, John 3, and Francis 1. Also in the household is his maternal uncle Bernard Reilly, 24.

By 1911 his mother had died and his father had remarried in Liverpool, and was living in Menai Street with his wife Maryanne, and infant daughter Catherine. Francis is 47,  and a coal trimmer on steamships. With them is son Bernard, 19, a ships scaler.

James was also living in Liverpool and was boarding with the Ashmore family at 32 Lenthall Street, Walton, Liverpool. The head of the household is Margaret Ashmore, a widow aged 46, born 1865 in Wicklow, Ireland. At the time of the Census she is living with her eight children, Patrick aged 20, born 1890 a tram car cleaner, William aged 18, born 1893 is a tramway trolley boy, Elizabeth aged 16, born 1895 is a tailor’s sewing machine apprentice, James aged 15, born 1896 is a tramway point attendant, Thomas aged 13, and Alice aged 8, born 1903 are both at school. Ena is aged 4 and was born in 1907. She has her married daughter Mary Hoare aged 27, born 1884, her husband George aged 26, born 1884 and employed as a barman and their Lilian aged 1, born 1910. All her children were born in Liverpool, apart from William, who was born in Wicklow, Ireland. James Murray is aged 21, born in Dublin and employed as a clothing cutter in an oilskin factory.

At the time of the war he was still living in Liverpool and enlisted in about March 1915 joining the 18th Battalion of The King's Liverpool Regiment as Private 26043.

From  03rd December 1914 the 18th Battalion moved into the hutted accommodation at Lord Derby’s estate at Knowsley Hall. On 30th April 1915 the 18th Battalion alongside the other three Pals battalions left Liverpool via Prescot Station for further training at Belton Park, Grantham. They remained here until September 1915 when they reached Larkhill Camp on Salisbury Plain. 

In early 1916 he married Maud O'Brien (nee Grimshaw). Maud had been widowed the previous year. She had a daughter Mary Constance who was aged 6 at the time of her marriage to James. The family lived at 23 Dunbar Street, Liverpool and it is likely that James and Maud married before he left for France. 

James was killed in action on 02nd March 1917 aged 26 as a result of the fall of a dugout during shelling.

He now rests at Agny New Military Cemetery in France. 

Agny New Military Cemetery was begun by French troops, and used by Commonwealth units and field ambulances from March 1916 to June 1917. Two further burials were made in April 1918, and in 1923-24, 137 graves were brought in from the battlefields east of Arras. The 40 French graves have been removed. Agny Military Cemetery contains 408 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, 118 of them unidentified, and five German graves. The cemetery was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. 

James died on his wife’s birthday.

Probate, giving James’ address as Dunbar Street, was granted to his widow Maud, effects of £130. She received his Army effects and a War Gratuity of £9 and was awarded a pension of 18/9d a week for herself and his stepchild from September 1917.  

Maud remarried Ernest J Gaskell in the summer of 1919 in West Derby Register Office. Their daughter Monica was born in 1925 but died days after birth, and was buried in a public grave.

In 1939 Maud, 54, is still living at 23 Dunbar Street with daughter Mary Constance, 30.  She is listed as married but her husband is not in the household. 

Maud died in 1946 aged 61 and was buried together with her first husband Francis O’Brien and daughter Mary Constance, who died in 1983.

James is commemorated in 

Hall of Remembrance, Liverpool Town Hall, Panel 17

Ireland's Memorial Records.

We currently have no further information on James Michael Murray, If you have or know someone who may be able to add to the history of this soldier, please contact us.