William Spencer Murray was born in Annapolis, Maryland, at the United States Naval Academy, August 4, 1873, a son of the late James D. Murray, pay director, United States navy, who was a native of Annapolis and a descendant of one of the old families of Maryland of Scotch descent, the ancestral line being traced back to William Murray, who came to the new world in the early part of the seventeenth century and settled at Chestertown, on the eastern shore of Maryland. Representatives of the family participated in the Revolutionary war and James D. Murray was a soldier of the Civil war, prominently connected with the navy. He died December 11, 1906, at the age of seventy-six years, his birth having occurred in 1830. His wife, who bore the maiden name of Elizabeth M. Spencer, was a native of Maryland, born on the eastern shore, and was a descendant of an old English family. She belonged to the Carmichel family of Maryland. Her death occured April 11, 1906, at the age of sixty-six years.

William S. Murray, who was the youngest of a family of five children, began his education in the schools of his native state. He attended St. John's College at Annapolis and afterward attended Lehigh University of Pennsylvania, in which he completed the electrical engineering course with the class of 1895. He then accepted a position in the shops of the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company, where he served as an apprentice for two years and from that position was graduated to the testing department, whence he passed on to the construction department and was later placed in charge of engineering and construction for the New England district of his company. Later he was chosen among many for the work on the first high tension transmission plants in the east, the economic feature of which suggested to Mr. Murray at that time the application of the high voltage overhead system to railroad electrification, which several years later he had the pleasure of installing on the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad. This system has now been adopted as standard on all the Swiss government railroads and is also standard with the Pennsylvania system. Mr. Murray was directly connected with the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company as their electrical engineer for eight years and on the 1st of January, 1917, accepted the office of assistant to the president of the Housatonic Power Company and was later elected to its presidency.

Prior to Mr. Murray's association with the Housatonic Power Company, in 1913, he resigned his position as electrical engineer with the New Haven road to form the firm of McHenry & Murray, engineers, of New Haven, Connecticut, Mr. McHenry resigning his office as engineering vice president of the New Haven road at the same time. This firm took over all the electrical engineering and construction of the New Haven road and finished the electrifications between New York and New Haven in 1914. This firm also actively took up the matter of the development of the Housatonic river for the purpose of supplying the New Haven road with the additional electric power necessary to operating all trains electrically on its New York division. Mr. Murray's and Mr. McHenry's interest in this proposed Housatonic river development has led to their association with the Connecticut Light & Power Company of Waterbnry, Connecticut, of which Mr. Murray is now chief engineer, in charge of engineering construction and power production, and in which company Mr. McHenry is a director. The Connecticut Light & Power Company is now developing the powers in which Mr. Murray and Mr. McHenry have been interested and at Stevenson, Connecticut, on the Housatonic river, there is being constructed a hydro-electric plant capable of developing thirty-six thousand horse power of electrical energy.

It might be asked why, after twelve years of development work in the electric traction field, Mr. Murray was willing to divorce himself from this, the most interesting branch of all the electrical engineering arts. However, the answer is simple. The effort to establish and standardize the most economic system of trunk line electric train propulsion was completed when the New Haven single phase system was accepted and installed on the Penn-sylvania Railroad for this country and by the Swiss government for the roads abroad. It has been apparent also, since the war began, that the electrification for trunk line roads will be held in abeyance for the present. In the interim he has become greatly interested, both professionally and financially, in the development of a power system by means of which the great industrial centers of Connecticut may be supplied with reliable and economical electrical energy. The recent abnormal growth in power demand in these districts must be met by the construction of steam-electric and hydro-electric, plants with their complement of intercon-necting transmission systems; all of which will furnish Mr. Murray with plenty to think about and do while his headquarters are at Waterbury.

On the 23d of December, 1905, at Catskill, New York, Mr. Murray was married to Miss Ella Day Rush, a daughter of Richard and Ella (Day) Rush and a descendant of Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and surgeon of the Continental army under General Washington.    Mr. and Mrs. Murray have become the parents of three sons:  Richard Rush, John Manadier and William Spencer, all born in New Haven.

Mr. Murray is a member of the New York Engineers Club, the Graduates Club of New Haven, the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, the New Haven Country Club, the Quinnipiac Club and other organizations. His religious faith is that of the Episcopal church. His high professional standing is indicated in the fact that he was honored with the vice presidency of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, of which he is a fellow. Outside of his achievements in construction and development work, he has written and contributed many scientific articles to publications of the day, preparing papers presented before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia. He prepared "The log of the New Haven electrification," the American and European discussions of which are in the transactions of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. He has written on "Conditions affecting the success of main line electrification," also "Electrification analyzed and its practical application to trunk line roads, inclusive of freight and passenger operation." Mr. Murray is a man of very modest demeanor and quiet tastes. His career has been characterized by great thoroughness in everything that lie has undertaken, setting the science of his profession and the accomplishment of the purposes which he has sought far in advance of material gains. Throughout his entire career, from the initial point of his appren-ticeship to the mastery of his profession, he has made sacrifices in order that he might take up various other branches of electrical engineering. To this end he has accepted inferior positions and remuneration to those that he was already holding in order that lie might acquaint himself with other branches of the work, having but the one idea in mind -- that of complete knowledge and efficiency in all departments. The results that he has attained show that in this course he chose wisely and well, and though through the periods in which he has been a student of different branches of the work, he has been called upon to make sacrifices, he has accomplished as a whole results that place him in the highest rank of the profession because of the extent and breadth of his knowledge and the ability to apply it.