Sir Edward Howard Marsh was born on November 18, 1872, in London, England.

He was a British polymath, translator, arts patron, and civil servant. He was educated at Westminster School, London, and Trinity College, Cambridge (1893-1895). In 1896, he was appointed Assistant Private Secretary to Joseph Chamberlain (1836-1914), the Colonial Secretary in Australia, followed by his successor Alfred Lyttelton (1857-1913), and Winston Churchill (1874-1965), Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. He toured British East Africa, Uganda, and Egypt with Churchill in 1907–1908, and served with him successively at the Board of Trade (1908–1910), the Home Office (1910–1911), the Admiralty (1911–1915) and, in 1915, the Duchy of Lancaster. In 1915, Marsh became Assistant Private Secretary to Prime Minister H. H. Asquith (1852-1828), a position he held until 1916 when he joined Churchill at the Ministry of Munitions and Treasury in 1924. From 1929 until his retirement in 1937, Marsh served as Private Secretary to every Secretary of State for the Colonies. He was knighted in 1937. He edited five anthologies of Georgian Poetry (1912-1922) and became Rupert Brooke's literary executor, editing his Collected Poems in 1918. He published verse translations of La Fontaine and Horace and a translation of Eugène Fromentin's novel “Dominique.” He was the sponsor of the Georgian school of poets and a friend to many poets, including Rupert Brooke and Siegfried Sassoon. Marsh was a discreet but influential figure within Britain's homosexual community.

He died on January 13, 1953, in London, England.