Historical information

Captain John Marshall was born in Dundee, Scotland c.1833. Within eleven years of his arrival in Melbourne in 1852, he had established an important colonial shipping company, Anderson & Marshall, and married Mary Austin, the eldest daughter of Thomas Austin Esq of Clifton Villa in Cotham Road. Elected to the Kew Borough Council in 1869, he remained an active member until 1875. During this period, he was elected Mayor of Kew in 1872. A Scottish Protestant by birth and conviction, John Marshall was, with David Beath, a member of the inaugural committee that began planning for a separate Presbyterian Church in Kew, lending the Committee the funds to purchase land on the corner of Cotham Road and Highbury Grove. John Marshall lived at his home, 'Maryfield', at what was then 239 [now 197] Cotham Road until shortly before his death at the age of 70 in January 1903. He was buried on 14 January in Grave 493, Presbyterian Compartment A, Boroondara General Cemetery.

Significance

Family portrait of the relatives of an important civic figure in Kew in the 19th century who was also a notable businessman and shipowner in the Colony of Victoria.

Physical description

Albumen silver photograph on card of the Marshall family grouped in three rows in a garden setting. The twenty-three members of the extended family do not include John Marshall so the photograph presumably dates from after his death in 1903. His wife, Mary Marshall, is in the middle row, five from left.