T HE MURRYS FIRST LOOM Out of the Celtic Twilight early in
the nineteenth century, with ' Thomas Murry Senior of the
Parish of Hubberstone County of Pembroke Shipwright'.
Thomas's mother was a Welsh-speaking, steeple-hatted native of
Anglesey; his father may have hailed from Ireland, where the name is
not uncommon in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century records: but
his further ancestry is uncertain, and immaterial. All that concerns us is
that he had two sons, Thomas Junior, born 1831, and John, born 1835,
who, he did solemnly and sincerely declare, were likewise apprenticed
to the shipwright's trade.

These two began life by plying the ferry between Milford Haven
and Haverfordwest. Later, the Hungry Forties bearing hard on the
family, this proved an inadequate livelihood. As long as a crust of bread
remained in the house, their father used to aver, his old mother (of the
steeple hat) should not be sent to the Union: but often a crust of bread
was literally all that did remain; and by their early twenties both boys
were forced to migrate to Sheerness Dockyards, where he himself
eventually joined them. The memory of those early privations seems to
have exerted a decisive influence on their lives -- and not only on theirs.

Thomas Junior, whose mortal fear of the Union survived into his
ninety-second year, would take his son out into the streets and point
to the crossing-sweeper at work, reminding him that such would be his
own lot unless he worked hard at the Docks. The lesson went home.
The boy (another Thomas) worked so hard that he hoisted himself
clean out of the proletariat, ending his days as inspector of the Govern-
ment Ordnance Factory at Dum-Dum -- and father of Mary Murry,
the novelist.

John was a rougher diamond. He would supplement his meagre
earnings by pocketing copper bolts from the Docks and disposing of

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