Mentioned in Despatches 1914 Trio to Cpl Marsden RE / Killed 23 of August 1914

1914 Star, correctly impressed 17502 2. Cpl Marsden R.E.

British War Medal, correctly impressed 17502 2. Cpl Marsden R.E

Victory Medal, correctly impressed 17502 2. Cpl Marsden R.E ( Original MID)

Condition GVF (Official correction to service number on BWM)

Edwin Marsden was born in Sheffield in 1887, the son Arthur and Sarah. He was educated as St Cuthberts Collage, which was boarding school. After education, he secured an apprenticeship at Vickers.

He joined the Royal Engineers in 1908 and invented the Marsden Band Trestle, an improved bridge-building trestle accepted by the War Office.

Edwin, by now a Corporal was posted to France on the 17^th of August 1914. He was sadly killed in action 6 days later. The Northern Daily Telegraph on the 19^th of September 1914 announced his death, the article included an extract from a letter sent to his family by his commanding officer;

 “ In a letter conveying the news of his death, Major C. W, Singer, commanding the 17th Company R.E., paid a tribute to his heroism. “It will be a gratification to you,” he writes to Corporal Marsden’s father, “ to know that he died as he had lived -as a brave soldier and a gentleman. He had just performed a most gallant deed in volunteering to blow up a bridge under very heavy fire, which he did unscathed. Shortly afterwards he was hit on the head by a shrapnel bullet, and expired instantaneously, without any pain. . . . Personally I feel I have lost a friend and a gallant comrade.”

Marsden was posthumously Mentioned in Despatches on the 16^th February 1915. He was laid to rest in Hautrage Military Cemetery.