see Poland Street 1 to 9 & 49 to 62 in London Addresses dataset
Edward Augustus Murray gent SunFire 1777 nr Broad St Poland St / Edward Murray gent Poland St voted 1784 Hood & Wray / ratebooks 4 Poland St 1780 Agnes Murray 1781-4 Mrs Mackie. True Briton 30.11.1796 Edward Augustus Murray Esq died at his house in Charlotte St, Rathbone Place. His will PCC 1796 mentioned his housekeeper Agnes Mackie and her sister Mary wife of William Benson, mother of children Charles Benson to whom he left house in Wimpole St, James Benson to whom he left public house corner of Goodge St, Tottenham Court Rd, Edward Augustus Murray Benson to whom he left house in Charlotte St, Mary Ann Benson to whom he left house in Edward St, Charlotte Benson to whom he left gold watch. His will was dated 21.11.1796 and proved 29.11.1796 by Agnes Mackie spinster. He asked to be buried at Croydon and Edward Murray from London age 53 was buried at Croydon St John 29.11.1796, so he was presumably the Edward Augusta Murray son of Thomas & Elizabeth born 8.12.1742 bapt 29.12.1742 St James. Thomas Murray = St George Bloomsbury 30.10.1738 Elizabeth Pearce botp. In 1785 newspaper ads announced the publication of an Address to the King by Thomas Augustus Murray to include an account of his origins and mentioned various noblemen as his friends. The book isn't in the British Bibliographical Index and was quite likely never published. Thomas Murray was perhaps an illegitimate child of royalty and the threat of publication may have secured him a payment. For more on the Bensons (who may have been children of Edward Augustus Murray or just his housekeeper's sister's children) see Mackie, Agnes
from a correspondent:
"I believe Edward Augustus and Thomas Augustus, mentioned above, were "brothers" - at least, they were both baptised in the 1740's as children of Thomas Murray and his wife Elizabeth.
Thomas Augustus seems to have spent a lot of time in and out of jail for money troubles, but at one point in the proceedings he does make the claim that he is a natural born son of Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales (1707-1751).
I discovered recently that there is an online collection of papers of the Georgian royal households, and so I've had a lovely time rummaging through them. It appears that the parents, Thomas Murray and his wife Elizabeth, both worked in the household of Frederick Louis. Thomas was a porter, and Elizabeth was a wet nurse to at least one of the Prince's children.
Thomas and Elizabeth are recorded as the parents of about 11 children born between 1736 and 1753, in various parishes around Westminster, and all their birth dates just don't make sense - they can't all have been the biological children of Thomas and Elizabeth. So I'm hypothesising that Thomas and Elizabeth were fostering some of those children, and that there was a very good reason to do so - for example, if they were children from the royal household and Thomas and Elizabeth were receiving substantial financial support for them.
I've set the evidence for this out at Wikitree, with profiles for parents Thomas and Elizabeth :
- Thomas Murray (c.1710 - 1754) at https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Murray-32109
- Elizabeth Pearce (c.1711 - 1758) at https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Pearce-13166
- Edward Augustus Murray (1742 - 1796) at https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Murray-32108
- Thomas Augustus (Smith) Murray (1744 - after 1797) at https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Smith-358273
My working hypothesis would be that, of the 11 children identified :
- Edward Augustus was a child of Elizabeth Pearce and someone from the royal family (possibly Frederick Louis). Elizabeth names him as her son in her will in 1758, but he was extraordinarily wealthy for the child of a porter and a wet nurse.
- Ann was a child of Elizabeth Pearce and someone from the royal family. She inherited far more than her sister, including a picture of Prince Edward, for no apparent reason.
- Elizabeth, George and Frederick were children of Thomas Murray and Elizabeth Pearce. Elizabeth names them as children in her will, and asks for them to be looked after, but does not make any specific bequests to them. Frederick was born after the death of the Prince of Wales.
- Thomas Augustus was not a child of Thomas or Elizabeth, but was fostered by them. He is not mentioned in either of their wills, and his baptism (1746 at St George Hanover Square) fits awkwardly between the baptisms of Patty (1745) and Henry Lumley (1747) at St Anne, Soho. With all his prison stays and his threats to publish, he appears to have travelled a somewhat different path from Edward Augustus, who simply settled into a gentleman's lifestyle."