Researched by Alessandra Brogioli

Edward Marshall was a statuary and master mason, and seems to have been from a Nottinghamshire branch of the Marshall family. He became a member of the Worshipful Company of Masons in 1626/27, was admitted to livery in 1631/2, became warden in 1642/3 and in 1646/7, and finally master in 1650.

Edward was a tomb-maker and sculptor of memorials, including the monument to Sir Thomas Playters in Sotterley, Suffolk, at St Margaret’s Church. He was Master Mason to the Crown and resigned in 1673 so his son Joshua could take the position.

He married twice. He had nine sons and five daughters by his first wife Anne but only the eldest son Joshua survived him. Anne (1604 – 1673) was probably the daughter of the sculptor Isaac James.

Edward’s second wife Margaret was the daughter of John White, and widow of Henry Parker of Barnet. Their daughter Margaret had been married to Edward’s younger son Henry.

Edward most likely had a business as stone cutter in Fetter Lane. He had a parcel of ground, with buildings and yards to the east of Fetter Lane, on the north to the passage called Bond Stables, on the south adjoining to the buildings of one John Dawling, gent., and on the west butting on the garden of the Master of the Rolls. (British Library, Add. 5063, f. 182)

By an indenture of 4th April 1668, he took a 51-year lease of land in Whitefriars near Whitefriars stairs, where he had been living and undertook to rebuild the houses destroyed by the Great Fire. It is not known when he moved from Fetter Lane to Whitefriars.

According to the Marshal monument erected to him in St Dunstan in the West where he was parishioner, Edward died on 10 December 1675, at the age of 77.