▶Date of birth:   12 November 1870       Place of birth: Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia

▶Father:  Samuel Edward Marsden     Mother: Beatrice McLaren

▶Spouse(s):  Ellen Violet Ransford     Date(s) of marriage:   28 June 1899     Place(s) of marriage: St Paul’s Church, Upper Norwood, Surrey

▶Occupation: Clergyman (Anglican)

▶Lifestory: The Revd. Edward McLaren Marsden served first as a Curate at Holy Trinity, Cheltenham, and later returned as its Vicar. He was the eldest son of the Rt. Revd. Samuel Edward Marsden, of The Woodlands, Clifton, Bristol, formerly first Bishop of Bathurst, New South Wales 1869-85, and his wife Beatrice (née McLaren, sister-in-law of James Winterbotham of Pittville, Cheltenham); he was the great-grandson of the Revd. Samuel Marsden (1765-1838), the pioneer Church Missionary Society missionary to New South Wales and New Zealand. Marsden was born in New South Wales in 1899, and was educated at Clifton College, matriculating at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1888, BA 1891, MA 1895.

After his undergraduate degree he attended Ridley Hall, Cambridge in 1892, and was subsequently ordained Deacon (Gloucester and Bristol) in 1893, and Priest (Rochester) in 1893. Marsden enjoyed a number of curacies and livings, firstly licensed as Curate of Holy Trinity, Cheltenham 1893-4, before moving as Curate to St Paul’s in Penge, Surrey 1895-8.

From 1898 he served as Association Secretary of the Church Pastoral Aid Society for the East of England from 1898 until 1901. In 1899 he married Ellen Violet, third daughter of the Revd. Robert Bolton Ransford, Vicar of St Paul’s, Upper Norwood; the couple had three sons and three daughters. Then, in 1901, he was appointed Vicar of St Paul’s, Penzance. From Penzance he became Vicar of St Jude’s, East Brixton 1903-12, and then returned to Cheltenham as Vicar of Holy Trinity 1912-25 (during the First World War he served as a Private in the Royal Armoured Medical Corps (RAMC); he was the nephew (and Curate) of a previous incumbent of Holy Trinity, Cheltenham, Percival Smith, Vicar from 1884-94. Between 1913 the Revd. Marsden lived at Holy Trinity Vicarage (now Camden House), Clarence Square; in 1913 he purchased a motor car (a 10/12 hp 4-cylinder Briton), which he sold in 1917.

After his long service at Cheltenham, he moved a short way out of the town when he was presented by the National Church League as  Rector of Longhope, Gloucestershire from 1925; he retired from Longhope in 1835 and went to live in Teignmouth, where he died in 1943, at the age of seventy-two; he was buried back at Longhope in Gloucestershire. His estate at death was valued for probate at just over £22,950.

▶Moved to Pittville from:        Moved from Pittville to: (1) Penzance; (2) St Jude’s, Brixton

▶Date of death:  20 October 1943      Place of death: Teignmouth, Devon

▶Date of burial:  25 October 1943       Place of burial: Longhope, Gloucestershire

▶Notes: Father returned to England and became an assistant bishop in the diocese of Gloucester and Bristol.         ID: 14537

Contributor(s):  John Simpson/Alan Munden