Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. No notes or highlighting. Crease on corner. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> George Marston (1882-1940) was a man who with the support of the developing system of higher education for working people left his conventional artisan background in Portsmouth to be trained as an art teacher in London. He played a significant role in Shackleton’s two major Antarctic expeditions (1907-9 and 1914-16) and illustrated the official accounts. Between these expeditions he strengthened his link with Hampshire when he married Hazel Roberts the daughter of the unconventional Dr Harry Roberts the focus of a bohemian artistic and literary circle in the Petersfield area. Returning to Oakshott after the famous Endurance expedition to the Antarctic George Marston entered a second phase of his life by joining the newly-created Rural Industries Bureau of which he became Director in 1934. Using a combination of his wide practical skills and aesthetic judgement allied to his innate capacity to relate to ordinary rural craftspeople he played a major role in the national initiative to regenerate small rural craft-based industry. He died in office in 1940 having played a major role in establishing policies and programmes which continue to this day. George Marston did not promote himself was never well known as an artist beyond the immediate excitement of Shackleton’s expeditions and like most ordinary families his was not self-regarding enough to keep a record of its activity. This paper which is based on Antarctic sources official records of the Rural Industries Bureau and the family material which does survive is the first biographical sketch of George Marston introduces the Rural Industries Bureau and its work in Hampshire and presents a picture of a very interesting man whose life and achievements are well worth recording. (LL)