He was born at Gilmour Place in Edinburgh, the eldest son of William Marshall a goldsmith with a shop at 1 South Bridge[1] and his wife Annie Calder.

It proved to be the turning point of his career, leading to many commissions for public monuments not only for the new Houses of Parliament - for which he made statues of the Lord Chancellors Clarendon and Somers, and of Chaucer[3] but also for Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral.

He made the colossal bronze of Robert Peel for Manchester; with figures representing the city, illustrative of manufactures and commerce, and another, symbolising the arts and sciences, at the base of the pedestal.

[3] His monument to Edward Jenner, the discoverer of vaccination was set up in the south-west corner of Trafalgar Square in 1858 and inaugurated at a ceremony presided over by Prince Albert.

His ideas - unlike those of the other sculptors working on the groups - received a generally positive reception from the Executive Committee overseeing the monument, and the sculpture was completed by April 1868.