Matthew Henry Marsh

Matthew Henry Marsh (1810—1881) was a politician in Great Britain and New South Wales and a Queensland pioneer pastoralist. Early life Matthew Henry Marsh was born on 10 September 1810 in Salisbury, England, the son of the Rev Matthew Marsh, the Canon of Salisbury Cathedral and his wife Margaret (née Brodie). He attended Westminster School. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts in 1833 and a Master of Arts in 1835 from Christ Church College of Oxford University. He was called to the bar of the Inner Temple in 1836, after which he was a barrister on the Western Circuit and at the Wiltshire Assizes. However, he did not have a very successful practice as a barrister and so on the advice of his uncle he emigrated to New South Wales. On 24 June 1840, he sailed to Sydney on the Broxbournebury arriving on 24 September. There he purchased a 340,000 acre pastoral run in New England which he called Salisbury Plains, a 175,000 acre run called Boorolong, and a 200,000 acre run called Maryland on the Darling Downs (then part of New South Wales, but subsequently part of Queensland). Leaving his pastoral properties under the management of his brother Charles, Marsh returned to England, where he married Eliza Mary Ann Merewether on 25 July 1844 in Calne, Wiltshire, England. On returning to New South Wales with his bride, in 1845 they built a large homestead called Salisbury Court at Salisbury Plains (now at 3031 Thunderbolts Way, Salisbury Plains, listed on the Uralla Shire local heritage register).