Edward Dallas Marston

Commander (retired) Edward Dallas Marston, R.N. (14 September, 1892 – December, 1984) was an officer in the Royal Navy. He preferred to be called "Dallas" rather than "Edward."

Life & Career

Marston gained no time on passing out of the Training Establishment on 15 May, 1910. He immediately was appointed to Shannon of the Second Cruiser Squadron and spent a year with her, suffering a three-week bout with German Measles in March/April 1911. He then spent two years in the armoured cruiser Duke of Edinburgh before returning to Liverpool in City of London to undertake examinations.

Marston served in the old destroyer Orwell for the first year of the war. He was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant on 15 July, 1915 and was assigned to help ready the new monitor M.22 for service. He would then serve in her until being appointed to the battleship Lord Nelson on 22 June, 1916. He served in that pre-dreadnought and at staff work with intermittent assignments to the hired yacht Triad, which was a tender to Lord Nelson. On 3 April, 1918 he was appointed in command of Triad. On 14 May he was ordered to return to England.

Marston was appointed in command of the destroyer Bulldog on 8 August, 1918. He married Muriel Heaton Smith at St. Paul's Church in Manchester on 3 October, 1918.

Marston served in Tactician from mid February 1919 until being transferred into Wanderer around August 1919. On 30 December 1921, he was superseded in Wanderer and was sent to Royal Naval Barracks, Devonport for slightly more than two years.

Marston was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Commander on 15 July 1923, and on 21 February 1924 was appointed to Maidstone as first officer.

He was briefly in Cleopatra in 1926 before being exchanged into the light cruiser H.M.S. Canterbury, in which he served until being superseded on 9 April, 1929. Marston was placed on the Retired List at his own request with the rank of Commander on 27 December, 1935.

World War II

In mid-1940 he was appointed to the Royal Naval College, Greenwich for duty with Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve officers. He reverted to the Retired List on 17 July, 1944.

Marston would die in late 1984 at West Hill, Ottery St. Mary in Devon in a house named ‘Cantray’. He was buried in Chagford alongside his first wife, Muriel.

His first cousin twice removed (and also his great-niece by marriage, as Marston was a cousin of her grandfather and also married her grandfather’s sister) possesses a portrait of Marston as a child and also his naval telescope, inscribed "E.D. Marston, R.N.".

See Also

• Service Records

Naval Appointments
Preceded by George E. Lewin	Captain of H.M.S. Triad 3 Apr, 1918 – 14 May, 1918	Succeeded by Adam Ferguson
Preceded by Walter F. Smithwick	Captain of H.M.S. Bulldog 8 Aug, 1918 – 17 Feb, 1919	Succeeded by ?
Preceded by James V. Creagh	Captain of H.M.S. Montrose 23 Oct, 1929 – 16 Nov, 1929	Succeeded by John Drinkwater
Preceded by Walter F. Smithwick	Captain of H.M.S. Carstairs 18 Nov, 1929 – 16 Nov, 1931	Succeeded by Cecil C. F. Grey