On his mother's side, Peter Proby was a great grandson of the Scottish publisher John Murray III through his younger son Alexander Henry Hallam (known as Hallam). Hallam Murray was the father of Betty Monica Murray and was thus Peter Proby's maternal grandfather.
After graduating from Oxford, he worked for the China trading firm of Jardine Matheson for four years, traveling between company posts on the Yangtze, leaving China in 1938. He enlisted in the Irish Guards upon the outbreak of World War II, spending most of his career in military intelligence interpreting aerial photographs and interrogating captured German airmen.
After the war, Proby qualified as a land agent, and then managed the family estate. In 1953, Proby was offered the bursarship of Eton. During his tenure there, several new buildings were erected, including Villiers and Farrer houses, and the college chapel was renovated after an infestation of death watch beetle. Proby was noted for his skilled financial management of these projects, and for his enthusiasm for new technology. After retiring from the bursarship in 1971, he returned to the management of Elton and engaged in local affairs.
On 15 January 1944, he married Blanche Harrison Cripps, daughter of Colonel Henry Harrison Cripps. Together, they were the parents of five children, with their youngest being twins:
Sarah Blanche Proby (b. 1945). She married Peter George Mills in 1968.
John Granville Proby (1946–1971). He died in December 1971 in Penang, Malaysia, having gone missing after travelling there from Singapore.
United Kingdom
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