Howard Percival Marshall (22 August 1900 at

Sutton Sutton (''south settlement'' or ''south town'' in Old English) may refer to: Places United Kingdom England In alphabetical order by county: * Sutton, Bedfordshire * Sutton, Berkshire, a List of United Kingdom locations: Stu-Sz#Su, location * S ...

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

– ) achieved distinction in several fields, but is best remembered as a pioneering commentator for live broadcasts of state occasions and sporting events — in particular

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

Test matches Test match in some sports refers to a sporting contest between national representative teams and may refer to: * Test cricket * Test match (indoor cricket) * Test match (rugby union) * Test match (rugby league) * Test match (association football) ...

— for

BBC radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927). The service provides national radio stations covering th ...

during the 1930s. Marshall was the only son of publisher Percival Marshall and Zoe Beatrice (née Bridger). After Haileybury, he went to

Oriel College, Oxford Oriel College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. Located in Oriel Square, the college has the distinction of being the oldest royal foundation in Oxford (a title formerly claimed by University College, wh ...

, winning a

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

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. He captained the Harlequins rugby team. He trained as a journalist, and joined the BBC in 1927. Within ten years he had become the premier radio

Outside Broadcast Outside broadcasting (OB) is the electronic field production (EFP) of television or radio programmes (typically to cover television news and sports television events) from a mobile remote broadcast television studio. Professional video camera ...

commentator, being chosen to describe the

coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth The coronation of George VI and his wife, Elizabeth, as King and Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth, and as Emperor and Empress of India took place at Westminster Abbey, London, on Wednesday 12 May 1937. ...

in 1937, as well as that of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. The live broadcasting of cricket had begun, in a limited fashion, in 1927, with ‘eye witness’ summaries by

Pelham Warner Sir Pelham Francis Warner, (2 October 1873 – 30 January 1963), affectionately and better known as Plum Warner or "the Grand Old Man" of English cricket, was a Test cricketer and cricket administrator. He was knighted for services to sport in ...

, as it was generally thought that ball-by-ball commentary would not work for a game as slow as cricket. However, this began to change around 1932 when the influential Seymour de Lotbiniere ('Lobby’) - who became BBC's Head of Outside Broadcasting in 1935 - began to believe that ball-by-ball commentary could make compelling radio. In 1934, he got Marshall to begin commentating on cricket, rather than just giving reports. Marshall was a great success, the poet

Edmund Blunden Edmund Charles Blunden (1 November 1896 – 20 January 1974) was an English poet, author, and critic. Like his friend Siegfried Sassoon, he wrote of his experiences in World War I in both verse and prose. For most of his career, Blunden was als ...

writing: ''"And then on the air, Mr Howard Marshall makes every ball bowled, every shifting of a fieldsman so fertile with meaning that any wireless set may make a subtle cricket student of anybody."'' He commentated on some of the "

Victory Tests The Victory Tests were a series of cricket matches played in England from 19 May to 22 August 1945, between a combined Australian Services XI and an English national side. The first match began less than two weeks after the end of World War II i ...

" in 1945, assisted by Rex Alston, but had moved on to higher things in the BBC when real Test cricket resumed the following year. Nine of his cricket commentaries over the period 1934 to 1945 survive in the BBC archives, including his famous description of

Len Hutton Sir Leonard Hutton (23 June 1916 – 6 September 1990) was an English cricketer. He played as an opening batsman for Yorkshire County Cricket Club from 1934 to 1955 and for England in 79 Test matches between 1937 and 1955. ''Wisden Cricketer ...

The Oval The Oval, currently known for sponsorship reasons as the Kia Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, located in the borough of Lambeth, in south London. The Oval has been the home ground of Surrey County Cricket Club since ...

in 1938 surpassing

Don Bradman Sir Donald George Bradman, (27 August 1908 – 25 February 2001), nicknamed "The Don", was an Australian international cricketer, widely acknowledged as the greatest batsman of all time. Bradman's career Test batting average of 99.94 has bee ...

's record score of 334 in Anglo-Australian Tests. As well as cricket, he also commentated on

boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermined ...

and rugby. He wrote cricket and rugby reports for the

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for some years. He provided the commentary on two documentary short films, and was the voice of a radio cricket commentator in the feature film '' A Matter of Life and Death''. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

he became the first Director of Public Relations at the Ministry of Food from 1940 to 1943, then Director of War Reporting and a war correspondent. He famously broadcast from a

Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...

beach immediately after the

D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...

landings. A snippet of the outside broadcast he made on the

VE Day Victory in Europe Day is the day celebrating the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces on Tuesday, 8 May 1945, marking the official end of World War II in Europe in the Easter ...

celebrations in London survives.Radio archive, Item 204 - Marshall live outside broadcast on 8 May 1945 (VE Day)
Retrieved 16 March 2010. He married twice (including

Nerina Shute Nerina Shute (17 July 1908 – 20 October 2004) was an English writer and journalist, described by the ''Sunday Times'' as "the amazingly colourful, brilliant and bisexual film critic". Early life Shute was born in Prudhoe, Northumberland. Her ...

) and found time to work as a Director of Personnel and Public Relations in the steel industry, to write several books on sport, housing and exploration, amongst other subjects, and to co-found the magazines ''Angling Times'' and ''Trout and Salmon''.

Bibliography

His books included: *''Rugger Stories'' (editor), Putnam, 1932. *''Cricket Stories'' (editor), Putnam, 1933. *''Edward the Eighth - Our King'' (introduction), Allied Newspapers Ltd, 1936 *''Under Big Ben: English Reveries'' (author) Longmans, Green and Co, 1937 *''Over to Tunis: The First Eyewitness Story of the Tunisian Campaign'', Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1943. *''Oxford v Cambridge: The story of the university rugby match'', Clarke & Cockeran, 1951. *''Coronation Day, 1953'', Hutchinson, 1953. *''Reflections on a River'', HF & G Witherby, 1967, .

References

Christopher Martin-Jenkins Christopher Dennis Alexander Martin-Jenkins, MBE (20 January 1945 – 1 January 2013), also known as CMJ, was a British cricket journalist and a President of MCC. He was also the longest serving commentator for ''Test Match Special'' (TMS) on B ...

: ''Ball by Ball: The Story of Cricket Broadcasting'', Grafton Books, 1990, , pp45–6
TMS Legends: Howard Marshall
* ttp://thescotsman.scotsman.com/s2.cfm?id=642962003 Review of "The Forgotten Broadcaster" (a Radio 4 programme about Marshall) {{DEFAULTSORT:Marshall, Howard (broadcaster) 1900 births 1973 deaths Alumni of Oriel College, Oxford Boxing commentators British fishers British male journalists British monarchists British radio personalities British reporters and correspondents British sports broadcasters British war correspondents Cricketers from Surrey English cricket commentators English rugby union commentators English rugby union players Harlequin F.C. players Rugby union players from Surrey