Obituaries
R.I.P. Marcus Murphy: Progressive Thinker, International Corporate Lawyer
Volume 33 Issue 7, 8 & 9 | Posted: September 30, 2019
J. Marcus Murphy has died of lymphoma after a short illness, in Victoria, BC. He was 84.
Marcus was born in York, England in 1934. His mother (Trudie, née Barker) was from York and his father (Patrick) from Deal, Kent. Marcus spent much of WWII in Belfast while his father served in India and Burma, before the family moved to Deal after the war.
Marcus attended Sir Roger Manwood’s School in Sandwich, where he excelled as a scholar and as an athlete, playing rugby, cricket and field hockey. He took a law degree from Birmingham University, and an LLM from Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, in 1955.
J. Marcus Murphy has died of lymphoma after a short illness, in Victoria, BC. He was 84.
Marcus was born in York, England in 1934. His mother (Trudie, née Barker) was from York and his father (Patrick) from Deal, Kent. Marcus spent much of WWII in Belfast while his father served in India and Burma, before the family moved to Deal after the war.
Marcus attended Sir Roger Manwood’s School in Sandwich, where he excelled as a scholar and as an athlete, playing rugby, cricket and field hockey. He took a law degree from Birmingham University, and an LLM from Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, in 1955.
As a young graduate, Marcus travelled in the United States on a Fulbright Scholarship, and taught law classes at Northwestern, Marquette and the University of Wisconsin. He fell in love with the open spaces of North America, and the openness of a society that made him welcome.
Marcus met Alexina King in 1958 on the Isle of Wight at the annual summer school of the Union of Catholic Students of Great Britain, a meeting that led to their marriage at Alexina’s family home in London, in August 1962. Their honeymoon voyage was a one-way sailing to Vancouver, where they began a life-long engagement with Canada, one that started and finished on the country’s Pacific coast.
Marcus became a member of the British Columbia Bar. He had joined Campney, Owen and Murphy in Vancouver in 1959 and was seconded by them to work for the Canadian Royal Commission on Taxation in Ottawa from 1963-1964. It was here that the first of his four children, Ambrose, was born. A few months later, the family spent a winter in Dawson Creek, British Columbia, where Marcus worked for a small firm, Gibb and Giraday. In 1965, the family returned to London. His son Austin was born soon after. Marcus qualified as a solicitor and accepted a job with the Distillers Company. The family set up house in Ealing, which is where his daughter Sophia and son Thomas were born.
In 1972 Marcus took a job with ITT Europe, which brought the family to Brussels, Belgium. In 1976 Marcus became General Counsel of ITT Canada in Toronto, where he established and ran ITT Canada’s legal department. The family became Canadian citizens not long before Marcus returned to Brussels as General Counsel to ITT Europe in 1981. In 1983 the family moved again, back to London, where Marcus served as General Counsel of the BOC Group until his retirement in 1992.
In retirement, Marcus remained intellectually and professionally active. He led a project for the UK Department for Overseas Development in Tanzania, training government lawyers in the legal consequences of the transition to a market economy.
Marcus and Alexina then moved to Guernsey, discovering with pleasure its unique ecosystem and history. They took extended trips to visit with family in Australia and the United States, and for a year they lived in Dubai. In 2012 they once again became residents of Canada, settling in Victoria, and making their holiday apartment in James Bay their permanent home.
Marcus was a long-standing member of the Union Club in Victoria, where he leaves many friends. He met regularly with the Coffee Club and enjoyed the lively discussions at meetings of the Canadian International Club. He worked tirelessly with the Strata Council of his condo-building, sharing a lifetime's professional experience and his innate good sense and good humour to help resolve complicated issues.
Marcus delighted in the company of family and friends, in books and music and film and travel and good food. He was generous and kind, a first-rate lawyer, clear-thinking, charitable, always willing to listen and advise. He loved the English language, and was a wonderful story-teller. His marriage was a joyful partnership, loving, respectful, supportive, and happy. He was a splendid father, loving to his little children and teens and a fine friend, advisor and ally in their adult lives.
Marcus is survived by Alexina, his wife of 57 years, and their four children: Ambrose, a lawyer and compliance officer living in Epping, England; Austin, a mathematics teacher living in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Sophia, a policy analyst specialized in food and agriculture, living in Squamish, British Columbia, and Thomas, a lawyer and a business entrepreneur, living in Beaconsfield, England. Marcus is also survived by ten grandchildren, and his brother, Michael, who lives with his wife José in Harrogate, England. We will miss him.
Marcus was cremated with only four close family members present, on 23rd July. The family are planning a celebration in memory Marcus’s life, for friends and family, to
Alexina and family thank friends and family, here in Victoria and in the UK, the United States and in Australia for all their loving concern and kind thoughts which have sustained us in these difficult days as we let Marcus go.