Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/157

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Marshall
143
Marshall

problems for the first time. By forcible and often picturesque language he would point out where the trouble lay and how to overcome it. The lucidity, thoroughness, and accuracy of Marshall's teaching may to some extent be estimated by a study of his three text-books, ‘The Frog’ (1882, 7th edit. 1900), ‘Practical Zoology’ (in conjunction with Dr. C. Herbert Hurst) (1887, 5th edit. 1899), and ‘Vertebrate Embryology’ (1893). Some idea of his clear and logical style of delivery as a lecturer may be gained from his ‘Biological Essays and Addresses’ (1894), and ‘The Darwinian Theory’ (1894). The way in which he embodied the point at issue in some happy phrase made an ineffaceable impression upon his audience. Thus the theory that animals recapitulate in their own development the ancestry of the race will never be forgotten by those who heard it compressed into the pregnant phrase, ‘They climb up their genealogical tree.’

Perhaps Marshall's greatest distinction was his capacity for organisation. As secretary, and subsequently as chairman, of the board of studies, Marshall rendered most valuable services in the founding and administration of the Victoria University. The correlation of the different sciences in the Faculty of Science is largely due to his labours. He was also secretary of the extension movement initiated by the university, and gained for it the success which invariably attended any organising work that he undertook.

Marshall was a man of great and tireless energy, and his attractive personality rendered him very popular with his friends, colleagues, and students. He was an excellent gymnast, and kept himself in training by constant practice. His chief recreation was mountain climbing. Though he was dissuaded by the untimely death of his friend Francis Balfour from beginning to climb till he was thirty, Marshall subsequently spent part of almost each long vacation in climbing in the Tyrol, Switzerland, or on the Mont Blanc chain; and he frequently passed the Easter and Christmas vacations on the mountains of Wales and of the English lake district. He was always a careful climber, and had acquired considerable experience of rock-work. On 31 Dec. 1893, while he was engaged with a party of friends in photographing the rocks of Deep Ghyll on Scafell, a rock gave way beneath him, and falling backwards he was killed instantaneously. His death could not be attributed to rashness; it was the result of one of those accidents which cannot be eliminated from the sport of mountaineering. A cross cut on the rocks below Lord's Rake marks the spot where his body fell.

Marshall graduated M.A. in 1878 and M.D. in 1882. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1885, and served on its council 1891–2. He was president of section D at the meeting of the British Association at Leeds in 1890, and gave one of the popular discourses before the British Association at the Edinburgh meeting in 1892. He was for many years president of the Manchester Microscopical Society. A list of his chief memoirs is given in ‘The Owens College, Manchester,’ 1900, pp. 210, 211.

[Obituary notices in Proceedings of the Royal Society, 1894–5, vol. lvii. pp. iii–v, and Nature, 11 Jan. 1894, p. 250; information kindly supplied by Prof. H. B. Dixon, F.R.S., and personal knowledge.]

F. W. G.


MARSHALL, BENJAMIN (1767?–1835), animal painter, born about 1767, exhibited thirteen pictures, chiefly portraits of racehorses and their owners, at the Royal Academy, 1801–12 and 1818–9. His portraits of sporting characters included those of J. G. Shaddick, 1806, and Daniel Lambert, 1807. Two pictures of fighting cocks, exhibited in 1812, were engraved in mezzotint by Charles Turner in the same year with the titles of 'The Cock in Feather' and 'The Trimm'd Cock.' Other engraved pictures are 'Hap-hazard' and 'Muly Moloch,' racehorses belonging to the Earl of Darlington, engraved as a pair by W. and G. Cooke, 1805, from pictures at Raby Castle; 'The Earl of Darlington and his Foxhounds,' by T. Dean, 1805, and the companion subject, 'Francis Dukinfield Astley and his Harriers,' by R. Woodman, 1809; 'Sir Teddy,' mezzotint by Charles Turner, 1808; 'Sancho,' a pointer belonging to Sir John Shelley, etched by Charles Turner in 1808; and 'Diamond,' a racehorse, engraved in mezzotint by W. Barnard in 1811.

Sixty paintings of sportsmen, horses, and dogs by Marshall were engraved by John Scott for Wheble's 'Sporting Magazine,' vols. vii-lxxxi., and eight types of horses by Marshall, also engraved by Scott, appeared in 'The Sportsman's Repository,' 1820. Marshall's exhibited and engraved works represent but a small proportion of the commissions which he carried out for patrons of the turf and masters of hounds throughout the country. A number of his pictures of horses are in the collection of Sir Walter Gilbey. About 1800-10 Marshall was living at 23 Beaumont Street, Marylebone. He had various later addresses in London, but was often described as 'Marshall of Newmarket,' where he chiefly lived. He died in