lady, she found it extremely hard to adjust to rural life in the lonely and uncouth Australian countryside. She was also physically frail, and the six pregnancies that she experienced during the time of her marriage to Murray badly weakened her constitution, leaving her vulnerable to infection. At the time of Mary's wedding, Murray had settled a moiety of his landed property on her in case he should ever become bankrupt as a result of drought or economic depression. When 40-year-old Mary died suddenly at Winderradeen homestead on 2 January 1858, this arrangement put Murray in a difficult situation because control of Yarralumla and a key part of Winderradeen now passed to the trustees of Mary's estate. Murray wanted to sell some of the land but he could not do so without the trustees' permission. The trustees included Murray's father-in-law, Colonel John George Nathaniel Gibbes (1787-1873), who was a member of the colonial legislature and the Collector of Customs for NSW, and Murray's brother-in-law, Augustus Onslow Manby Gibbes (1828–1897), who was the manager of Yarralumla. (A third trustee, the politician, landowner and founder of the University of Sydney Sir Charles Nicholson, would return to England to live in 1862 and cease to be involved in Murray's affairs.) In July 1859, Murray sold Yarralumla, all its buildings and its livestock to Augustus Onslow Manby Gibbes in order to raise cash. He continued, however, to reside at Winderradeen, the sale of which his late wife's trustees blocked repeatedly, much to Murray's growing annoyance. Regrettably, the dispute over the protracted non-sale of Winderradeen eventually spilled over into the NSW Supreme Court in 1868, when Murray tried without success to oust the trustees and replace them with people more sympathetic to his needs. This acrimonious legal action widened an existing rift between Murray on the one hand, and Colonel Gibbes and his wife Elizabeth on the other. Mrs Gibbes was particularly hostile towards Murray because she felt that he had contributed to her daughter Mary's early death by keeping her sequestered away on his country properties, far from Sydney and the better standard of medical care that was available there. The Gibbes trustees had also said it was their duty not to rush into the sale of Winderradeen. By obtaining the best possible price for the property, they could purportedly maximise the benefits accruing to Mary's three surviving children—Leila Alexandrina Murray, Evelyn 'Mary' Murray