Lorraine Murray ( Laurinna Agnes Treweek, 22 January 1910 – 7 January 2000) was an Australian woman who travelled extensively in Asia where she ultimately began working as a sex worker, or as she called herself a demimonde. Just before the outbreak of World War II she returned to Australia and, being unable to leave, was recruited as a counter-intelligence informant for the Commonwealth Investigation Branch before moving the England for much of her later life where she became a society matron and librarian.

Murray was a close friend and muse of Emily Hahn and features as a character in many of her books and novels including Miss Jill (1947) which fictionalises her life story.

Early life Murray was born at the St Joseph's Refuge in Fullarton, South Australia which was a home for unmarried mothers and their children until their age of three. Her mother Laura Caroline Treweek, a domestic worker, had travelled there from New South Wales to give birth and no father was listed on Murray's birth certificate.

Murray spent the first few years of her life, until the age of two, with foster parents in Adelaide until she went to go live with her mother again who lived between Sydney and Melbourne. By this time Laura was in a relationship with Ben Chaffey, a wealthy pastoralist and businessman, who was married. The couple had three children together and Murray's mother, to avoid judgement as a unwed mother, began claiming to be a widow and went by the name 'Mrs Murray'. They split as a couple in 1918 and Chaffey continued to provide financial support to her and their children.

Murray attended various schools and Sydney until, struggling to get along with her mother, she was sent to New England Girls' School in Armidale as a boarder between 1925 and 1927. Here she received her intermediate certificate before returning to Sydney and training as a stenographer and typist.

Time in Asia Having gained these qualifications Murray was then employed as a junior reported at The Sun (Sydney) and it was while in this role, while preparing for the 'social rounds' at the city nightclub she met Tokugawa Iemasa who was then the Japanese consul-general. They formed a sexual relationship and, in July 1931, she travelled with him to Ottawa, Canada. Here she officially joined his household as a companion to his daughter. Later they travelled together to Tokyo where, after their relationship became clear, she was expelled from Japan is September 1933.

From 1934 Murray established herself as a sex worker in Shanghai (China) where she worked at a 'high class' brothel in the city’s International Settlement. Murray called herself a demimonde, meaning a woman on the fringes of respectable society, rather than a sex worker. During this time she worked under various aliases including Lorraine Lee and Johnny Jean. In 1936 she formed a relationship with Edmund Ellis Toeg, a businessman, and, with his financial aid, she was able to leave the brothel. In 1937 during to Battle of Shanghai, during which she served as a volunteer nursing aid, she met, and begun an affair with Luigi Barzini Jr. Barzini was an Italian journalist who was serving as an Asian correspondent and their relationship was a turbulent one and, during it, she had an abortion and made a suicide attempt.

Seeing Murray struggling Toeg persuaded Emily Hahn, an American writer, to take Murray 'under her wing'. Murray and Hahn then lived together for a time and Hahn helped her re-establish herself and it was the beginning of a lifelong friendship.

Return to Australia Murray returned to Australia to visit family in August 1939 and, although she planned to stay for only a few months, she was unable to leave due to the outbreak of World War II. She was treated with suspicion by the government and, when applying to return to China (July 1940) she was rejected. However, due to her numerous connection with high ranking Japanese and Italian contacts she was recruited by the Commonwealth Investigation Branch in November 1940 as an informant.

During her early years as an informant she had a number of 'targets', including a former school friend Gerda Holterhoff, however, her most prominent target was Rupert Lockwood, a journalist and member of the Communist Party of Australia. Later, in documents that were revealed during the Australian Royal Commission on Espionage Lockwood would describe Murray as 'very beautiful' and 'remarkably stupid'. During the Commission itself he would clarify some of his experiences with her and state 'she was probably the most embarrassing informer [the CIB] ever recruited' and describe her as '[t]he shady lady hired by the secret police to watch me was beautiful, irresponsible, vicious and slanderous'.

From 1942 to 1947 Murray transferred to work as a secretary for the United States Army and she was first based in Sydney and then in Brisbane.

It was during this period that Hahn published her memoir China to Me (1944) which became a bestseller. Murray was included in this book as the character 'Jean', this identified her publicly as a former sex worker and, later, she also learned of Hahn's plans to write a novel, more directly drawing on her life story.

Travel to England Due to fear about Hahn's book coming out, and it negatively affecting her life in Australia, Murray travelled to England to join Hahn in July 1947. Shortly after this, in November, Miss Jill (1947), the novel about her, was published. While in England Murray worked for Hahn as a nanny and typist. Murray would appear as a character in several more of Hahn's books.

Here Murray reconnected with Toeg whom she married on 17 November 1948 and, after an extended honeymoon on the French Riviera, they moved into a house in Knightsbridge (London). In the 1950s Murray began working for various organisations, including the Royal Central Asian Society and the Pakistan Society, until in the 1970s she worked as an assistant librarian for the Royal Asiatic Society.

Later life After Toeg's death in 1985 she returned to Australia where she settled near Wagga Wagga with her brother and his family until moving into a nursing home there.

She died on 7 January 2000.

Further reading Hordern, Nick (2023). Shanghai demimondaine : from sex worker to society matron. Earnshaw Books, Hong Kong.

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