19 published people

The Murdochs

From St Quivox in Ayrshire to Maloney Street, Toowoomba — a labourer, an engineer, and a man who died of a heart attack in the middle of a tennis game.

Audrey "Dell" Murdoch (1929–2022) was working in the Toowoomba branch of Union Trustees in 1948 when a young man was transferred up from Brisbane. She married him in 1952 and stayed married for just under fifty-eight years. Her children tell the story →

Three generations, three hearts

1824Francis Murdoch · 1824–1909

Labourer, of St Quivox, Ayr. He married Marion Watt at Avondale, Lanarkshire, on 6 May 1854 — the parish of which Strathaven is the town, and 1854, not the 1853 the family tree carries. Their children were Marion Fleming, George, Janet, Jeanie, James and William. He died at Ayr in 1909; he never left Scotland.

1856William Murdoch · 1856–1918

Born St Quivox and Newton, Ayrshire, 7 October 1856 — and the Scottish statutory register names his parents as Francis Murdoch and Marion Watt, which is how this line is documented rather than asserted. Engineer. The generation that emigrated. Married Catherine Jane Matson of Cornacreeve, County Monaghan. Died of a heart attack at Maloney Street, Toowoomba, 22 April 1918; buried Toowoomba Cemetery.

1894William James Fraser "Bill" Murdoch · 1894–1946

Born Gympie, Queensland. Married Barbara "Goldie" Atwell at Brisbane, 11 April 1922. Died 26 May 1946 of a heart attack during a tennis game, aged fifty-one. His daughter Gayle recorded that he had been a member of the Communist Party — kept here as family lore, because it is remembered rather than documented, and it would be a straightforward thing to check.

1929Audrey "Dell" Murdoch · 1929–2022

Born Toowoomba, 1 November 1929. Sixteen when her father died on the tennis court. Married Kenneth Lindsay D'Arcy at Toowoomba, 5 April 1952. Died at Brisbane, 1 August 2022, aged ninety-two; interred at Centenary Memorial Gardens with her husband.

1948, the Toowoomba office

"He was a big disappointment"

According to Mum, all the girls in the Toowoomba office were quite excited about the imminent arrival of the new young man from Brisbane. Likewise, Mum was full of anticipation and hope that a handsome heartthrob would walk through the office door that Monday morning. When she finally laid eyes on Dad, she clearly remembers thinking to herself — 'Ohhh'. "He was a big disappointment," she confided.
— Gayle D'Arcy, eulogy for her father, March 2010

They were married four years later and stayed so for fifty-eight. They got to know each other at table tennis fixtures; she had the habit of getting the giggles every time she lost a point. Their daughter went on to be one of the best table tennis players in Queensland for years.