William Murray was an Alternativist Conscientious Objector who may have accepted Non-Combatant status in the Army before his tragic death in 1916. William was a member of the Plymouth Brethren, a dissenting non-conformist Protestant sect which had long held a doctrinal aversion to taking life in war. Only 22 when Conscripted in 1916, his Tribunal hearing at Inverness Town Hall would have been one of the first in the area in early March. He was granted “Exemption from Combatant Service Only”, which would have sent him to the Army as a non-combatant.

To many Plymouth Brethren COs, non-combatant service in the Army was an acceptable moral compromise, granting them the ability to conform to both their own ethical standards and the conscription law. This may not have been the case with William Murray, who attempted to have the decision changed twice, first at the Inverness County Appeal Tribunal and then at the Central Tribunal in May of 1916. Despite his appeals, the decision stood, and by June 1916 he was officially conscripted into the Non-Combatant Corps, 2nd Scottish Battalion, where he would be expected to obey orders, wear uniform and carry out a range of labour and support tasks aimed at freeing up combatant soldiers for service at the front.

It is not known whether William accepted the NCC posting once in the hands of the military, as shortly after his arrival at the Hamilton Barracks, he fell ill. It is likely that he spent much of July in the Hamilton Military Hospital, and died of pneumonia on the second of August 1916. He is buried and commemmorated as an NCC soldier in Tomnahurich Cemetery, Inverness.