Murdoch family
| Ethnicity | Scottish Australian; Anglo-Celtic Australian; British; United States |
|---|---|
| Current region | Australia; United Kingdom; United States; |
| Place of origin | Pitsligo, Aberdeenshire, Scotland |
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Members of the Murdoch family are prominent as international media proprietors, especially in Australia, the United Kingdom and United States. Some members have also been prominent in the arts, clergy and military in Australia.
Five generations of the family are descended from two Scottish emigrants to Australia: the Reverend James Murdoch (1818–1884), a minister of the Free Church of Scotland and his wife Helen, née Garden (1826–1905). Both were from the Pitsligo area of Aberdeenshire and emigrated to the Colony of Victoria in 1884.
Helen and the Rev. James Murdoch had 14 children.
Their eldest child, the Rev. Patrick Murdoch was born in Pitsligo and raised at Rosehearty, Aberdeenshire. He was ordained at Cruden, Aberdeenshire, where he also married Annie Brown (in 1882). At the age of 34, Murdoch emigrated with his wife and parents to Victoria. He was a prominent there as a Presbyterian minister and published several books on theology. Two of Patrick and Annie Murdoch's six children achieved prominence, Sir Keith Murdoch and Ivon George Murdoch.
Nora Curle Smith, née Murdoch, was born in Pitsligo and married David Curle Smith (1859–1922). A pioneering electrical engineer, David Curle Smith was in charge of the municipal electricity supply at Kalgoorlie, Western Australia during the early 20th century, invented a pioneering electric stove, which he patented in 1906. To promote the stove, Nora Curle Smith wrote the world's first cookbook for electric stoves, which featured 161 recipes and operating instructions for the stove, under the name "H. Nora Curle Smith": Thermo-Electrical Cooking Made Easy (1907; reprinted 2011). Nora Curle Smith was also a noted painter.
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