The Times/1912/Obituary/Frank Thomas Marzials

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Sir Frank Marzials

Sir Frank Thomas Marzials, C.B., formerly Accountant-General of the Army, died yesterday at his residence, 9, Ladbroke-square, Notting-hill, W., after having been in failing health for some months.

Sir Frank Marzials, who was born at Lille in 1840, was the son of the Rev. A. T. Marzials, and was descended from an old French family. He was educated at his father's school and entered the War Office during the Crimean War, becoming Accountant-General of the Army in 1898. He was decorated for his long service in 1902 and knighted upon his retirement in 1904. He was a member of the Patriotic Fund Corporation, a member of the Council of Queen's College, Harley-street, and a vice-president of the London Library, in which he had taken a great interest for many years.

It was by his literary and biographical studies that Sir Frank Marzials was most widely known. He had a very extensive knowledge of both French and English literature and a keen sense of appreciation which rendered him peculiarly fitted to be co-editor of the series of Great Writers. Fir this he wrote the Lives of Dickens and Victor Hugo and collaborated in the Life of Thackeray, for whose work he felt a special admiration. Besides many literary articles and reviews and a collection of sonnets, he also wrote biographies of Gambetta, Robert Browning, and Molière, and translated the chronicles of Villehardouin and Joinvile. Sir Frank Marzials was a man in who kinliness predominated, and in recent years he was strikingly venerable appearance. He was twice married; his first wife died in 1874, and in 1885 he married the daughter of the late Major Finnemore, R.A., who survives him. He leaves a son and a daughter by his first marriage and two daughters by his second.