Introduction

Biography

Theo, a com­pos­er, sing­er and po­et, was the son of An­toine-Theo­phile Mar­zials, pas­tor of the French Pro­test­ant Church of London, and Ma­ry Ann Jack­son.

He was educated at Mer­chant Tay­lors’ School.

He worked as a clerk in the Bri­tish Mu­se­um which seemed to col­lect more than its fair share of vagu­ely li­ter­ary hang­ers-on. (Eu­dæ­mo­nist)

The read­ing pub­lic was ap­paren­tly un­im­pressed by Mar­zi­als’ li­ter­ary ef­forts:

By 1895 [his 1873 Gal­le­ry of Pi­geons] still had not sold out…The ge­ner­al con­tem­po­ra­ry re­act­ion was not par­ti­cu­lar­ly en­thu­si­as­tic, and can best be summed up in a post­script to Dan­te Ga­bri­el Ros­set­ti’s April 19 (1873) let­ter to Ford Ma­dox Brown, where he writes:

Have you re­ceived this Pi­geon book by Mar­zi­als? Good God! And Scott tells me it pro­duce­s ex­act­ly the same im­pres­sion on him that my things did when he first saw them.

Eudæmonist

Af­ter writ­ing and per­form­ing sev­er­al po­pu­lar songs, [Mar­zi­als] van­ished in­to ob­scur­ity. (Wi­ki­pe­dia)

He re­tired to Co­ly­ton in the ear­ly 1900s.

Works

• The Gal­le­ry of Pi­geons, and Oth­er Po­ems (Lon­don: Hen­ry S. King, 1873)
• Twickenham Fer­ry (Lon­don: Boo­sey, 1878)
• Pan-pipes: A Book of Old Songs (Lon­don: George Rout­ledge & Sons, 190?)