Alfred Stanley Marsh, 
ALFRED STANLEY MARSH was born at Crewkerne on February 1, 
l \ 1892. He died on January 5, 1916, being shot through the heart by 
a German sniper, who had found a weak spot in the parapet of the trench. 
Death was instantaneous. One who ran to his aid was killed in the 
same way. 
Marsh was educated from 1903 to 1909 at Sexey’s School, Bruton, and 
here his taste for Natural History received encouragement. He obtained 
a First Class in both the Junior and Senior Oxford Local Examinations, and 
in both he gained distinction in Botany (among other subjects). In 1908* 
when only sixteen years of age, he gained the County Scholarship and 
an Exhibition and Subsizarship at Trinity College, Cambridge ; but he did 
not enter Cambridge University until 1909, when he also won the Soley 
Scholarship. He surmounted the obstacle of the Latin and Greek tests 
in the Little-go, being placed in the third class, and wiring to his Head 
master, characteristically- — ‘ Sorry I have passed one class higher than 
I intended.’ 
As an undergraduate at Trinity his record was a distinguished one. In 
1911 he obtained a First Class in the Natural Sciences Tripos, Part I. He 
then specialized in Botany, and in 1913 he was placed in the First Class in 
Part II of the same Tripos. He was thereupon offered the Frank Smart 
Studentship in the gift of Gonville and Caius College, accepted it, and 
migrated from Trinity to Caius. This Studentship afforded him the oppor- 
tunity of doing research work in Botany, of which he availed himself with 
energy and enthusiasm. He acted as a demonstrator in Professor Seward’s 
classes in Elementary Botany, and on Dr. Moss’s field excursions, his 
keenness and good humour endearing him to the students. 
Marsh’s published work consists of four papers which appeared in 
I9M-L5 : 
(1) ‘ Notes on the Anatomy of Stangeria paradoxal New Phyt., xiii, 
pp. 18-30. 1914. Marsh demonstrated an interesting mode of vascular 
supply of the leaves in this Cycad, and followed the behaviour of the centri- 
petal and centrifugal xylem strands of the leaf throughout its whole length. 
Plis conclusion was that ‘a close relationship can be argued between the 
modern Cycadales and the fossil Cycadofilices ’. 
(2) ‘The History of the Occurrence of Azolla in the British Isles 
and in Europe generally.’ Proc. Cambridge Phil. Soc., xvii, pp. 383-6. 
1914. This paper gives an account of the occurrence of A. caroliniana 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. XXX. No. CXVIII. April, 1916.] 
