Sir Keith Arthur Murdoch was an Australian journalist and newspaper proprietor who was the founder of the Murdoch media empire. He amassed significant media holdings in Australia which after his death were expanded globally by his son Rupert.
Murdoch was born in Melbourne, the son of a Presbyterian minister. He began his journalism career with The Age in 1903, eventually becoming a parliamentary reporter. In 1915, he moved to England as editor of Hugh Denison's overseas cable service, where he rose to prominence as a war correspondent during World War I. Murdoch's attacks on the Allied high command's conduct in the Gallipoli campaign brought him to the attention of senior British politicians and press barons, including Lord Northcliffe who served as a mentor. He also became a confidant of Australian prime minister Billy Hughes, although they fell out by the end of the war.
In 1921, Murdoch returned to Melbourne as chief editor of The Herald, beginning a long association with its holding company The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd (HWT). He would become managing director in 1928 and chairman in 1942, overseeing a significant expansion of the company into interstate newspaper markets and commercial radio. Murdoch established a monopoly in the Adelaide newspaper market in 1931 and in 1933 established The Courier-Mail as Brisbane's daily newspaper; he also controlled The West Australian for several years. Murdoch co-founded the Australian Associated Press (AAP) in 1935 and was the inaugural chairman of Australian Newsprint Mills. During World War II he briefly served as Director-General of Information.
Outside of his business activities Murdoch was an art collector, serving as chairman of the National Gallery of Victoria and endowing a chair of fine arts at the University of Melbourne. He had four children with his wife Elisabeth, a prominent philanthropist. He retired in 1949, dying of cancer in 1952. In his final years he sold out of HWT and invested heavily in The News, an Adelaide tabloid. Its holding company News Limited formed the basis for his only son Rupert's global media empire.
Murdoch was born in Melbourne in 1885, the son of Annie (née Brown) and the Rev. Patrick John Murdoch, who had married in 1882 and migrated from Cruden, Scotland, to Victoria, Australia, with his family in 1884. His paternal grandfather was a minister with the Free Church of Scotland, and his maternal grandfather was a Presbyterian minister.
In 1927 he saw a photograph of an attractive 18-year-old débutante, Elisabeth Joy Greene, in Table Talk magazine, and arranged for a friend to introduce him. She became Mrs Elisabeth Murdoch in June 1928, honeymooning on his Cruden Farm estate at Langwarrin. They had children Helen (later Mrs Geoff Handbury), Rupert Murdoch, Anne (later Mrs Milan Kantor) and Janet (now Mrs John Calvert-Jones). In the early years of World War I he had been engaged for a time to Isabel Law, daughter of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer and future Prime Minister Bonar Law.
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| 1885 |
August 12, 1885
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West Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
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| 1929 |
April 9, 1929
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| 1936 |
1936
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| 1952 |
October 4, 1952
Age 67
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Cruden Farm, Langwarrin, Frankston, Victoria, Australia
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