Sir Edward Howard MarshKCVO CB CMG (18 November 1872[1] – 13 January 1953) was a Britishpolymath, translator, arts patron and civil servant.[2] He was the sponsor of theGeorgian school of poets and a friend to many poets, includingRupert Brooke andSiegfried Sassoon. In his career as a civil servant he worked as private secretary to a succession of the United Kingdom's most powerful ministers, particularlyWinston Churchill. He was a discreet but influential figure within Britain's homosexual community.[3][4]
Marsh's father wasHoward Marsh, a surgeon and later Master ofDowning College, Cambridge. His mother, born Jane Perceval, was a granddaughter of prime ministerSpencer Perceval, and a daughter ofSpencer Perceval, MP, one of the twelve "apostles" recognized by the movement associated withEdward Irving and known as theCatholic Apostolic Church. Jane, a nurse, was one of the founders of the Alexandra Hospital for Children with Hip Disease; Howard was a surgeon at the hospital. Marsh was educated atWestminster School, London, andTrinity College, Cambridge,[1] where he studied classics underArthur Woollgar Verrall. At Cambridge, he became associated withR. C. Trevelyan,Bertrand Russell,G. E. Moore, andMaurice Baring. He was aCambridge Apostle.
In 1896 he was appointed Assistant Private Secretary toJoseph Chamberlain, theColonial Secretary. When Chamberlain resigned in 1903, Marsh became Private Secretary to his successor,Alfred Lyttelton. WhenWinston Churchill becameUnder-Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1905 duringHenry Campbell-Bannerman's first Government, Marsh became Churchill's Private Secretary, beginning an association and friendship that would last until Marsh's death. Marsh would be Churchill's Private Secretary for the next ten years, until Churchill left the Government in 1915. AsRandolph Churchill, Winston's son put it, from December 1905, "Marsh was to accompany Churchill to every Government department he occupied: to theBoard of Trade, theHome Office,the Admiralty, theDuchy of Lancaster, theMinistry of Munitions, theWar Office, back to his originalColonial Office and theTreasury."[5] The moves were somewhat irregular as Marsh remained, until 1937, officially a clerk at the Colonial Office, but many exceptions were made, possibly at a cost to Marsh's official advancement.
When Churchill left government for the first time in 1915, Marsh became Assistant Private Secretary to Prime MinisterH. H. Asquith in which position he served until the fall of Asquith's government in December 1916. When Churchill returned to government as Minister of Munitions in 1916, Marsh joined him there as Private Secretary and worked in that position through successive departments until the fall ofDavid Lloyd George's Coalition Government in 1922. When Churchill becameChancellor of the Exchequer in 1924, Marsh joined him there as Private Secretary and remained at the Treasury until the fall ofStanley Baldwin's second government in 1929, when Marsh was returned to work at the Colonial Office. He then served as Private Secretary to every Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1929 until his retirement in 1937. Marsh was knighted upon his retirement and became Sir Edward Marsh.
A classical scholar and translator, Marsh edited five anthologies ofGeorgian Poetry between 1912 and 1922, and he becameRupert Brooke'sliterary executor, editing hisCollected Poems in 1918. Later in life he published verse translations ofLa Fontaine andHorace, and a translation ofEugène Fromentin's novelDominique.
The sales of the first threeGeorgian Poetry anthologies were impressive, ranging between 15,000 and 19,000 copies apiece.[6] Marsh and the criticJ. C. Squire were the group's most important patrons, and it was in Marsh's London rooms thatSiegfried Sassoon and Rupert Brooke met for the only time, in June 1914.[7]In 1931, he won a literary contest with a new stanza forParadise Lost, which repairs the omission of how"Adam and Eve Brush Their Teeth". In 1939, he produced his memoirs, titledA Number of People. An edited collection of letters,Ambrosia and Small Beer, appeared in 1964, recording two decades of correspondence with his friend and biographer,Christopher Hassall.[8]
Marsh advisedSomerset Maugham about his writing between 1935 and 1953 with hundreds of pages of criticism. This is recorded in Ted Morgan's biography of Maugham (1980).
Marsh was also a consistent collector and supporter of the works of the avant-garde artistsMark Gertler,Duncan Grant,David Bomberg andPaul Nash, all of whom were also associated with theBloomsbury Group.[9]
In addition to his work editing Churchill's writing, Marsh introduced Siegfried Sassoon to Churchill as a means of aiding the former's career. He was also a close friend and lover ofIvor Novello.[10]
