Doncaster-based WM evangelist, he was born at Skelmanthorpe, the family being workers in the domestic wool-textile trade. His mother, Ann (d. 1847) originally attended WM services but subsequently allowed her home to be used for PM class meetings. In his teens Isaac rejected his Christian upbringing and gained a notorious reputation, especially for pranks. He fathered two illegitimate daughters with Sarah Taylor, who would later marry her cousin. One daughter, Sarah Marsden Taylor, later married George Henry Beeley (1839-1917. em.1862) a P.M. who, except for one year, itinerated in Yorkshire; the other daughter married into the Parkinson butterscotch manufacturing family of Doncaster.

Business regularly took Isaac to Doncaster and in September 1834 he was drawn to Priory Place W.M. Chapel where the Rev. R. Aitken was preaching a series of special sermons. This led to his conversion, and in 1837 he came onto full plan as a local preacher. He toured the country as an evangelist seeking conversions, his most important being that of William Booth, probably in 1844, who at the time worshipped at Wesley Chapel, Nottingham, subsequently founding the Salvation Army, to which Marsden gave sympathetic support. On marrying Mary Barker in 1854, the daughter of a Burton-on-Stather farmer whom he had met when staying there on a preaching tour, they settled in a house in Priory Place. On his death he was buried in the town's Carr Hill Cemetery, where there is a monument to him.

Entry written by: DCD
Category: Person
Comment on this entry