Born in Kilmore, Victoria, Tyrrell was the third of five children of Thomas Michael Tyrrell, postmaster, and his wife Florence Evelyn (née Kepert).[1] Tyrrell was educated at Orbost and Mordialloc and Melbourne Boys' High Schools. He married Ellen (Nell) St Clair Greig on 6 May 1939. They had three children.[2]
Career
Tyrrell served for over 45 years in the Australian Public Service. For most of this time he was assistant secretary or personal secretary to a succession of Ministers including the Prime Minister, Ben Chifley.[3]
Tyrrell had a small but pivotal role to play in the establishment of the Australian Conservation Foundation. The ACF began in the second half of 1964, after a suggestion was made to Tyrrell by The Duke of Edinburgh while visiting Australia in 1963. He voiced an idea that Australia could become involved in conservation by establishing a branch of the World Wildlife Fund. Tyrrell convened a meeting that came to the conclusion that, if a conservation body was to exist, its efforts should be directed at conserving Australia's own heritage. From this the ACF emerged.[6]
Tyrrell lived at 11 Blundell Street, Queanbeyan, New South Wales, in an old heritage cottage still called "Sir Murray Tyrrell's Cottage". He was an Alderman of the Queanbeyan City Council from 1976 to 1980.
Tyrrell died on 13 July 1994 in Canberra at the age of 80.[9]
^Smith, David I., "Tyrrell, Sir Murray Louis (1913–1994)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 3 November 2020
