Edward Marsh

Edward Marsh (standing) together with Winston Churchill during an African journey in 1907

Sir Edward Marsh (1872– 1953) was a poet and civil servant, who served as Private Secretary to Sir Winston Churchill.

Marsh's father was Howard Marsh, a surgeon and later Master of Downing College, Cambridge. His mother was a granddaughter of the prime minister Spencer Perceval. He was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied and was a member of the Apostles.

In 1905 he became Private Secretary to Winston Churchill (then Under-Secretary for the Colonies). He continued as Churchill's Private Secretary from then until 1929, in different government departments, except when Churchill was out of office. He received a knighthood on his retirement in 1937.

Marsh edited five anthologies of Georgian Poetry between 1912 and 1922, and became Rupert Brooke's literary executor, and edited Brooke's Collected Poems (1918).

"[Rupert Brooke's] best friend at the end of his life was Edward Marsh, who was as much in love with him as [James] Strachey had been."