Hi, great blog inn Deptford.
My family moved there in the early 1800’s from Dorset. My great great grandfather died in the Greenwich workhouse.
This picture of a family wedding shows my great grandmother Rose Marsh 2nd from left front row. 3rd from the right is my great grandfather who was blacklisted by the great western railways for union activity. He had 14 children and they lived in extreme poverty in a house in Edward street.
At the back on the right nearly faded out are my grandmother who was born in Swindon but left school at 12 because her father a farm labourer was killed in an accident and they only paid for schooling to 14 for boys and 12 for girls so she was sent into service in London.
Beside her is my grandfather who worked for the great western railways in the maintenance yard as a tool maker. He had tickets from malnutrition as a boy so had a humped back but worked hard his whole life.
Right at the very back behind my grandfather is a fresh faced young man who is my Dad.
He was called Richard Marsh. He left school at 14 to start work in stones foundry in Charlton but at 17 went to do his national service.
After that he went to Ruskin college as a mature student, worked for a union for a few years and then became the MP for Greenwich and went on to become a cabinet minister and then the chairman of British Rail.
Pretty good story of social mobility in action thanks to the Labour Party and the union movement. From a blacklisted labourer to head of the railways in 3 generations of marshes lol
Keep up the good work with the blog it’s brilliant
Chris Marsh
Lord Richard Marsh
Richard Marsh was evacuated to Rodbourne from London during the 2nd World War, lived with his Grandmother in Redcliffe Street and went to Jennings Street School. He became Minister of Energy & Minister of Transport in Harold Wilson’s 1st Labour Government from 1966 to 1970. He received a Knighthood and later a life peerage as Baron Marsh of Mannington but is addressed as Lord Marsh. He is now a Cross Bench Peer in the House of Lords. A Cross Bench Peer is one that is not aligned to any particular political party. Richard says he was proud to have lived in Rodbourne and has happy memories of his time there. His fellow peers were puzzled by his choice of title as Mannington is now a trading estate next to a traffic island. When Richard told them that when he lived in Rodbourne this was only fields on the edge of Mannington Rec (Recreation Ground) where he had happy memories of playing with his Rodbournite friends, thus the choice of his title. We are proud to have had him as an honorary member of the Rodbourne Community History Group.
Lord Marsh sadly past away in 2011 aged 83.
