Author: Marsden, John Howard
Biography:
MARSDEN, John Howard (1803-91: ODNB)
He was born on 7 May 1803 and baptised on 22 July at St. Katherine’s, Blackrod, Lancashire, the eldest son of Rev. William Marsden and his wife Sarah Howard, who had married in Manchester in 1802. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School (Head Scholar 1822) and St. John’s College, Cambridge (matric. 1822, BA 1826, MA 1829, BD 1836, Fellow 1827-1841). He won the Seatonian Prize at Cambridge in 1829 with his poem, The Finding of Moses (1830). He married Caroline Moore on 7 May 1840 at St. Mary and St. Nicholas, Spalding, Lincolnshire, where her father was Perpetual Curate and Prebendary at Lincoln Cathedral. They had three sons. He was Clerk in Orders at Manchester Cathedral in 1834 and was later elected Resident Canon in 1858. He was also Rector of All Saints, Great Oakley, Essex, 1840-89. At Cambridge he was select preacher in 1834, 1837, and 1847 and Hulsean Lecturer in 1843. He was Disney Professor of Archaeology (1851-65). His wife predeceased him in 1883. He died on 24 January 1891 at Grey Friars, Colchester. They were both buried at Great Oakley, where there is a Memorial Inscription. He left an estate of over £150,000. Besides the usual array of sermons, he published Two Introductory Lectures upon Archaeology (1852), another volume of poetry, Fasciculus (1869) , and various antiquarian works. (ODNB 19 July 2023; ancestry.co.uk 19 July 2023; findmypast.co.uk 19 July 2023; CCEd 19 July 2023; Morning Post 31 Oct. 1829; Chester Chronicle 15 May 1840; Manchester Courier 30 June 1883, 27 Jan. 1891) AA