Robert Murray

From Tolkien Gateway
Robert Murray
Biographical information
Born8 June 1925
Died24 April 2018
Education1944-48, Classics at Christi College, Oxford
1961-63, Theology at the Gregorian University, Rome
OccupationPriest, Scholar, Author
LocationEngland

Father Robert Patrick Ruthven Murray (b. 8 June 1925 - 24 April 2018) was an English Roman Catholic theologian and grandson of Sir James Murray (the founder of the Oxford English Dictionary).

A personal friend of the Tolkien family (a friendship which contributed to his conversion to Roman Catholicism) since 1944, Murray was entrusted by J.R.R. Tolkien to proofread drafts and manuscripts of The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien and Murray corresponded frequently, especially on matters of religion, and several letters to Murray were published in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (letters 142, 156, 209).

He became a Jesuit in 1949 and was ordained in 1959. On 1 August 1959, Tolkien served Murray's first Mass, and on 6 September 1973, four days after Tolkien's death, he assisted in a requiem Mass for Tolkien in the Church of St Anthony of Padua in Headington, Oxford.

He was on the Faculty of Heythrop College in Oxfordshire and London since 1963.

During the Tolkien Centenary Conference in Oxford (1992), Father Murray delivered the sermon at the Thanksgiving service.

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