1969
(511)
(BUILDING TRADES GENERAL FOREMAN)
Born in Leicester on the 17th May 1909 and educated at the Brunswick Street and Curzon Street Schools. On leaving school in 1923 at the age of 14 he commenced work in the Carriage and Wagon Department of the London and North Eastern Railway Company and 18 months later became an apprentice bricklayer with a local building firm.
Married Betty Irene Outram on the 19th December 1936 and has a son and daughter.
In 1928 he joined the Amalgamated Union of Building Trade Workers and has held the office of Secretary since 1939. Appointed Foreman to the Leicester No. 3 Hospital Management Committee in 1958 with responsibility for the maintenance of the eight hospitals within the Group.
Became a member of the then independent Labour Party in 1928. He has held all the major offices in the Leicester Labour Party and is a former President of the Abbey and Belgrave Ward Parties. Elected to the City Council in 1945 and has served on many of the Committees. A former Chairman of the Housing and Markets Committees and Vice, Chairman of the General Purposes Committee, a member of the Derwent Valley Water Board since 1950 and Chairman of the Board since 1968. He was elected an Alderman in 1964 and was High Bailiff of the City in 1967, 68.
During his Year of Office as Lord Mayor, Alderman Marston did much to encourage charitable causes in the City and devoted a considerable amount of his time to their affairs. A firm believer in a multiracial society, he was always deeply conscious of the importance of good relations between the various communities residing in
Leicester. The Lord Mayor's Reception and Ball was a notable occasion in that representatives of all the immigrant communities were invited to attend. Alderman Marston also played a leading part in the celebrations in Leicester of the Mahatma Gandhi Centennial. The year was marked, too, by the Centenary of the British Red Cross Society for which the Lord Mayor arranged a Reception which was attended by Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Gloucester.
Accompanied by Alderman K. W. Bowder, the Deputy Lord Mayor, Alderman Marston visited the 4th Battalion, the Royal Anglian Regiment, formerly the Royal Leicestershire Regiment, in Bahrain in the Arabian Gulf in January 1970 shortly prior to the disbandment of the Battalion. This also presented an opportunity to visit the 3rd Light Battery of the 47th Light Regiment, Royal Artillery, with which the City has associations, which was then stationed in Sharjah.
