Marshall’s Moral Sciences Apprenticeship and Search for a New Vocation (1866–77)

Biographical fragments imparted to friends and students in later life and recollections from his wife inform on the activities Marshall engaged in during the years immediately following his completion of the Mathematical Tripos in 1865. These years involved a short period as acting mathematics master at Clifton College, a newly established public school, during which Marshall made friendships opening new doors for him at Cambridge. Henry Sidgwick, a Fellow at Trinity and an external examiner at the school, was one of these new friends. He probably introduced Marshall in turn to Clifford and Moulton who, as Mary Paley recorded, were his two greatest friends when he became a Fellow at St John’s. Another Johnian, called Moss, was part of a group of seven young Fellows at St John’s who met regularly together for Shakespeare readings. In addition, Marshall joined the Eranus Society in these years. This was a discussion group including Sidgwick, Venn, Fawcett and Clifford among its members, the first three of them teachers at Cambridge in the Moral Sciences. It brought Marshall thereby in close contact with persons involved in the disciplines he himself began to study on completion of the Mathematics Tripos. Two years later, in 1867, Marshall joined the Grote Club, another Cambridge discussion society concentrating on philosophical subjects and named after the Cambridge Professor of Moral Philosophy who had started it.