Keith Murdoch - Life and Career

Life and Career

Murdoch was born in Melbourne in 1885, the son of Annie (née Brown) and the Rev. Patrick John Murdoch, who had married in 1882 and migrated from Cruden, Scotland to Victoria, Australia with Patrick's family in 1884. His paternal grandfather was a minister with the Free Church of Scotland, and his maternal grandfather was a Presbyterian minister. The family moved from West Melbourne to the affluent suburb of Camberwell in 1887. Keith was educated at his uncle Walter's short-lived school, then at Camberwell Grammar School, where he became dux in 1903, despite extreme shyness and stammering. He decided not to go straight to university but to try a career in journalism, so family friend David Syme of The Age agreed to employ him as district correspondent for nearby Malvern. Over the next four years, working long hours, he managed to create a significant increase in The Age's local circulation, to earn promotion, and to save enough money for a ticket to England, where he hoped to gain further experience and find ways to master his stammer.

From 1908–9, in London, he took speech therapy, studied part-time at the London School of Economics, and tried to find employment as a journalist, with the help of recommendations from more family friends, including Australia's Prime Minister Alfred Deakin. The stammer reduced, but remained a problem, and shortly after it cost him a job with the Pall Mall Gazette in September 1909, Murdoch returned home to resume work for The Age, now as parliamentary reporter, in which capacity he strengthened the family's relationships with politicians such as Andrew Fisher, in some cases entertaining them at his aunt's country guest house.