staff of Serampore College, which had been jointly founded by his father, in 1821. In 1837 the last of the Serampore Trio, his father Joshua Marshman died. Following his death John Mack and Marshman struggled to carry on the work of the college, spending all their earnings and Marshman's income from his private concerns, including those from the paper mill. After he published The Friend of India, he stipulated that the proceeds should go to the college. It was reckoned that in all he contributed more than £30,000. As the struggle to maintain the college was getting more onerous each year to try and fund privately, Mack and Marshman decided to turn the college over to the Baptist Missionary Society. The Society was unwilling to take over the burden fully, but did offer to support a theological professor on the college staff. Marshman later rather unwillingly accepted the position of Official Bengali Translator to the Government, and thereafter was abused almost daily in the native newspapers as "the hireling of the Government". His salary of £1,000 per annum was passed to the college. Return to England In 1855 Marshman planned to leave India for good. Mack and he proposed once again to pass control of the college to the Baptist Missionary Society; this time the proposal was accepted. He resigned his post as Official Bengali Translator to the Government and returned to England to Kensington Palace Gardens. Marshman was a student of Indian history and he wrote what was for many years the only history of Bengal. He was also long engaged on the writing of the history of India; his reading was very wide and he was a distinguished Oriental scholar. He studied Chinese (like his father) and knew the major Sanskrit poems. He also gave much attention to Persian. In England, however, he was refused a seat on the Council of India. For his services to education, he was recognised by the granting of the Star of India in 1868. To earn a living he became chairman of the Committee of Audit of the East Indian Railway. He made three unsuccessful attempts to obtain a seat in Parliament, for Ipswich in 1857, Harwich in 1859, and Harwich in 1861. On his death it is said that he had known as much about Indian affairs as if he had been the personal assistant to four successive Viceroys. He died