Author: MARSH, Edward Garrard
Biography:
MARSH, Edward Garrard (1783-1862: ancestry.com)
The son of the wealthy lawyer and accomplished composer John Marsh (1752-1828) and his wife Elizabeth Catherine Brown (1756/7-1819), he was baptised at Salisbury, Wiltshire, on 21 Jul. 1783, one of six children of whom only two grew to maturity. The family moved from Salisbury first to an inherited estate near Barham, Kent, and then permanently to Chichester, Sussex, in 1787. He went up to Wadham College, Oxford (matric. 1800, BA 1804, MA 1807), and stayed on as a Fellow of Oriel 1804-14; he was also ordained as deacon (1807) and priest (1808). It appears to have been early in his Oriel years that he was introduced to William Blake (q.v.) by an old family friend, William Hayley (q.v.). On 6 July 1813 Marsh married Lydia Williams (1788-1859) of Southwell, Nottinghamshire, at the Minster there. The first of their five children was born while he was a curate at Nuneham, Oxfordshire. Marsh later became a prebendary of Southwell (1821); vicar of Sandon (1828-9) and of Ardeley (1828-35), both in Hertfordshire; and vicar of Aylesford, Kent, from 1841 until his death. From 1820 until 1837 he was first the regular minister and then an occasional preacher at St. John’s Chapel in Hampstead, London: he published sets of sermons from there in 1828, 1832, and 1837. In 1848 he had the honour of delivering the Bampton Lectures at Oxford. He died at the vicarage, Aylesford, on 20 Sept. 1862, and was buried at his church of St. Peter and St. Paul on Sept. 25. He left effects amounting to under £35,000. Marsh’s publications generally reflected his professional concerns with scripture, missionary work, and social issues, but he also made a valuable 15-volume abridged transcription—eventually housed at the Cambridge University Library--of his father’s remarkable diaries which was for many years the only copy available. (ancestry.com 27 Sept. 2023; findmypast.com 27 Sept. 2023; “Marsh, John,” ODNB 27 Sept. 2023; Robert N. Essick, “Minute Particulars: William Blake and John Marsh,” Blake: an Illustrated Quarterly 25:2 [1991]; Norfolk Chronicle 27 Sept. 1862; Alumni Oxonienses; CCEd 27 Sept. 2023) HJ