John Howard Marsden

John Howard Marsden (7 May 1803 – 24 January 1891) was an English cleric and academic. He was an antiquarian and became in 1851 the first Disney Professor of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge.

Life The eldest son of William Marsden, curate of St. George's Chapel, Wigan, and later vicar of Eccles, he was born at Wigan. He was admitted on 6 August 1817 to Manchester Grammar School, and was head scholar in 1822.

Marsden gained an exhibition from his school to St John's College, Cambridge, where he was elected a scholar on the Somerset foundation. In 1823 he won the Bell university scholarship. He became M.A. in 1829, and B.D. in 1836.

In 1840 Marsden was presented by his college to the rectory of Great Oakley, Essex, which he held for 49 years, resigning it in 1889 for health reasons. He also held for some years the rural deanery of Harwich. Having been elected canon residentiary of Manchester in 1858, he became rural dean of the deanery of Eccles, and he was one of the chaplains of James Prince Lee, first bishop of Manchester.

History of the Gentlemen's Society at Spalding, London, 1849. William Marsden (1754–1836) was a member of the Spalding Gentlemen's Society. A Brief Memoir of the Life and Writings of Lieutenant-Colonel William Martin Leake, F.R.S., privately printed, London, 1864, on William Martin Leake. Leake had married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Charles Wilkins. She was the widow of William Marsden (1754–1836).

In 1829 Marsden gained the Seatonian Prize, the subject of the poem being The Finding of Moses, Cambridge, 2nd edit. 1830. He published also sermons preached at Manchester Cathedral, Colchester, and Cambridge, 1835 to 1845. Maurice Howard (1843–1920), cleric, married in 1873 Frances Maria Simpson, daughter of the Rev. S. Simpson, of Lancaster. Reginald Godfrey (1845–1927), barrister, married 1874 Edrica Jane Cowling, daughter of John Cowling.