Born in Amritsar, India, where his father was a District Judge and his uncle Chief Engineer and Secretary to the Government of the Punjab. Educated at a prep school in Margate and at Charterhouse School.. In 1891, after failing his examinations for the Indian Civil Service, he sailed to Durban, South Africa. After various exploits, in 1901 he was working as Co-manager in the Salisbury District and Estates Company. It was at this time that he met and subsequently employed C.F.Swynnerton, well known for his tse-tse fly work. In 1907 he was appointed Curator of the Sarawak Museum, but sudden illness prevented him from taking up the post, and in 1909 he was appointed Scientific Secretary to the new Entomological Research Committee (Tropical Africa). In this position Marshall developed the organisation so that it became the model for several others elsewhere in the world. He initiated the Bulletin of Entomological Research and the Review of Applied Entomology, and it was due to his enthusiasm that the Imperial Bureau of Entomology (became the Commonwealth Agricultural Bureau) was established in 1913. Between the Wars he advised the Colonial Office on entomological matters. Later he founded one of the first commercial companies devoted to pest control. After retiring in 1942 he continued to work at the NHM until his death. Marshall’s interest in entomology was undoubtedly fostered by his father and uncle who were both keen naturalists. At his prep school the German master stimulated an interest in Lepidoptera, and when he joined Charterhouse this had developed to include beetles. His early work in Africa centred on mimicry in particular and, after writing a number of short notes, in 1902 he published a lengthy study with E.B.Poulton on this subject in Trans.ESL, 35, pp. 287-584 detailing five years’ research. From this date on, however, almost all his work and publications, amounting to 204 papers and a volume in the FBI series, were focussed on the Curculionidae of which he described numerous new species from all over the world. Smith (1986) p. 135 records that there are various insects of all orders in the HDO from South Africa and Southern Rhodesia (1896-1906) together with a series of types and syntypes of the weevils described in Proc.ZSL 1906. p.911. The NHM houses a loose-leaf MS recording data on the capture of South African Coleoptera 1891-1898 and there is correspondence and other material in the RESL listed by Pedersen (2002). FRESL 1895-1959 (Hon.). Council 1907-8, 1919-21, 1924-6, 1928-30, 1932-4, 1938-40, bibliography (and from which much of the above is taken). (MD 2/04, 11/09)
Dates
20 December 1871 – 8 April 1959