AustLit

James Murdoch graduated from the University of Aberdeen with an M.A. first-class honours in classics in 1879. After working in Scotland, Murdoch was appointed in 1881 to the position of headmaster at the new Maryborough Grammar School, Queensland. After falling out with the trustees of the school, Murdoch taught for a short time at Brisbane Grammar School, leaving of his own accord to work with William Lane and Francis Adams at the Boomerang.

Following a visit in 1888 to the East and South-East Asia, Murdoch became a lecturer in European History at the First Higher School in Japan from 1889-1893. He left Japan to briefly join Lane's 'New Australia' commune in Paraguay in late 1893, then spent the next five months at the British Museum, translating the letters of sixteenth-century European religieux in Japan. In 1894 he returned to live in Japan, teaching and writing there until 1917.

He returned to Australia in early 1917 to teach Japanese at the Royal Military College, Duntroon and also at the University of Sydney, appointments initiated by the Defence Department. He was also the author of A History of Japan 1542-1868 3 vols (1903-1926), the third volume was published posthumously and Australia Must Prepare: Japan, China, India: An Inaugural Lecture, University of Sydney (1919).