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Len Murray

The Right Honourable
The Lord Murray
of Epping Forest

OBE PC
General-Secretary of the TUC
In office
1973–1984
Preceded by Vic Feather
Succeeded by Norman Willis
Assistant General-Secretary of the TUC
In office
1969–1973
Preceded by Vic Feather
Succeeded by Norman Willis
Personal details
Born Lionel Hodskinson
(1922-08-02)2 August 1922
Hadley, Shropshire
Died 20 May 2004(2004-05-20) (aged 81)
Loughton, Essex
Nationality British
Political party Labour
Other political
affiliations
Communist
Spouse(s) Heather née Woolf m. 1945 (later Heather, The Lady Murray of Epping Forest)
Children Four, including David Murray

Lionel Murray, Baron Murray of Epping Forest, OBE, PC (2 August 1922 – 20 May 2004) was a British Labour politician and trade union leader.

Murray was born in Hadley, Shropshire, the son of a young unmarried woman, Lorna Hodskinson, and was brought up by a local nurse, Mary Jane Chilton. He attended Wellington Grammar School in Wellington, Shropshire and read English at Queen Mary College, London, but left after a year because of the emphasis on Anglo-Saxon language. He briefly became a teacher but found he was unsuitable and then joined the British Army.

Murray was commissioned in the King's Shropshire Light Infantry in April 1943 and took part in the Normandy landings on D-Day. Six days later Murray was badly wounded and in October 1944 was invalided out of the army with the rank of lieutenant.

Murray worked at an engineering works in Wolverhampton as storekeeper, before leaving to sell The Daily Worker on street corners and joining the Communist Party. While selling The Daily Worker, he encountered his former headmaster, who informed him he was wasting his time. Determined to improve himself, shortly afterwards Murray gained a place at New College, Oxford where he graduated with a First in PPE after two years' study under tutors including future MP Dick Crossman and Sir John Hicks.


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