Author: Marshall, George
Biography:
MARSHALL, George (1751-1823: findmypast.com)
The third son in the family of Robert Marshall, a prosperous timber merchant in Blyth, Northumberland, he was baptised at All Saints, Newcastle upon Tyne, on 10 Apr. 1751. His mother’s name has not been found. His older brothers went into the family business but he chose the life of a sailor and joined the sea service of the EIC, possibly after attending the naval school at Trinity House, Newcastle. He rose to the position of Chief Officer. He liked to write: in a prefatory note to Epistles in Verse, he describes his poems as products of “the juvenile years of a sailor, during his relaxation from professional duties.” There is a work in manuscript by him with a prefatory poem, “George Marshall to Miss Eliza Marshall, London, August 22nd, 1777,” in the archives of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, consisting of a series of letters written from the Royal Charlotte when he was Fourth Officer. His first publication was also a prose work, published under the pseudonym “Palinurus,” entitled Familiar Letters from an Elder to a Younger Brother, Serving for his Freedom in the Trinity-House, Newcastle (1785); it was intended to help boys and young men to guard against the hazards of a seafaring life. He does not appear to have married, but his name was not uncommon and there are a few possible matches. When he retired from the EIC he was made Governor of the Newcastle Gaol, but ill health soon obliged him to leave the north and settle at Portsea, Hampshire, where he died on 4 Jan. 1823 and was buried at St. Mary’s on 9 Jan. The subscription list for Epistles, which was dedicated to Earl Percy of Northumberland, is very impressive (1800 names according to Welford, at a guinea apiece). Marshall’s two brothers at Blyth took six copies each. (findmypast.com 24 Mar. 2023; Archives of McMaster University, online catalogue; Richard Welford, Men of Mark ‘twixt Tyne and Tweed [1895] 2:159-60; Durham County Advertiser 18 Jan. 1823) HJ