Born on 12 July 1914 at Dunedin, second son of Hugh and Helena Marshall, he was educated at Otago Boys High School and won an entrance scholarship to the University and the Fowler Scholarship in the Medical School. He qualified in 1938 with a gold medal in clinical medicine. While a resident at Auckland Hospital he contracted rheumatic fever which pre-cluded him from active service in the war of 1939-45. He later held resident posts at Hastings, New Zealand, and at Wellington. After postgraduate study in England he was appointed to the surgical staff of the Memorial Hospital, Hastings. He died on 10 January 1959 aged 44, survived by his wife, three sons and a daughter; he had married Edna Janet Houlker in 1940. He had been President of the Hawkes Bay branch of the British Medical Association, and was honorary surgeon to the Hastings Racing Club. He came of a family well known in academic and medical circles in the South Island. Golf was his chief recreation.