James Murdoch (27 September 1856 – 30 October 1921) was a Scottish Orientalist scholar and journalist, who worked as a teacher in the Empire of Japan and Australia. From 1903 to 1917, he wrote his "monumental" three-volume A History of Japan, the first comprehensive history of Japan in the English language (the third volume being published posthumously in 1926). In 1917 he began teaching Japanese at the University of Sydney and in 1918 he was appointed the foundation professor of the School of Oriental Studies there. Early life James Murdoch was born in the Kirktown of Fetteresso, a village on the outskirts of Stonehaven, near Aberdeen, Scotland. His parents were William Murdoch, a labourer, and his wife Helen, née McDonald. He exhibited signs of intellectual brilliance as a child, and although his family was of moderate means, he won a scholarship to Aberdeen University where he completed a bachelor's and master's degree. He subsequently studied at Worcester College, Oxford University, the University of Göttingen (where he studied Sanskrit under Theodor Benfey), and the University of Paris. In June 1860 he took up a post as assistant to the professor of Greek at Aberdeen. Regarded as a genius in foreign languages, at the age of 24, he suddenly resigned from his post and decided to emigrate to Australia. Life in Australia Murdoch taught in Queensland, Australia in the years 1881–1889. His first appointment was as the headmaster of the new Maryborough Boys Grammar School. He had been chosen from among 130 applicants for the position but became unpopular with the trustees (possibly because of his atheism) and he was dismissed in March 1885. He worked for the next two years as assistant master at Brisbane Grammar School. In 1886, he also sat for the Bar examinations, but failed in two of the eight papers because he had mistakenly attempted to answer every question. He left the school at his own wish and became a journalist at the radical nationalist newspaper, The Boomerang. In a series of articles he predicted that within a generation the Australian colonies would form an independent republic, which would turn socialist through a violent revolution unless the harsh living conditions of the working classes were alleviated. Life in Japan Murdoch came to Japan as a foreign advisor, from September 1889 – 1893 as a professor of European history at the First Higher School, an elite institution for