The late Pat Marsden and the Wivenhoe History Group

 

The late Pat Marsden

Pat Marsden was one of the 21 people I invited to the inaugural meeting of the Wivenhoe History Group in the upstairs room of the Nottage Maritime Institute on 25^th April 2013.

She made an immediate and positive contribution to the setting up of the Group and became one of the initial members of the Steering Committee, joining Ian Valentine, John Stewart, Chris Thompson, Gill Strudwick and myself to make recommendations on how the Group should be run.

Pat felt strongly about many topics and was unafraid about making her views known. She was very keen to see our Group have a strong interest in researching Wivenhoe’s history and that is reflected in the Objects of our Constitution which she had a big hand in drafting:

a) To promote, support and actively encourage research into the history of the parish of Wivenhoe in the county of Essex

b) To encourage people of all ages to take an interest in their local history by establishing a web-based community archive and various other means such as exhibitions, lectures, articles and publications.

She was very keen to see the Group establish a web-based community archive in which to digitally store lots of photographs and text to explain and detail many aspects of Wivenhoe’s rich past.

Despite some health issues especially some difficulties with her eyes, she managed to upload a great many images and write up lots of pages of her extensive research into several different subjects.  She was particularly keen on transcribing Wills and Deeds. There are many examples in our web-based community archive of her scholarly work on them.

All of these pages that she added will be there so that the name Pat Marsden will be remembered for evermore and not by all of us in the Wivenhoe History Group but the wider community of Wivenhoe and anyone interested in knowing much more about Wivenhoe’s rich history. She leaves a considerable and valuable legacy.

Peter Hill, Chairman, Wivenhoe History Group

Click on the links below to see examples of her research which are significant bodies of work and would have entailed a huge amount of effort on her part:

• In February 2016, Pat published her thorough and detailed research into ‘Two Lost 18th Century Mansions and the Sea-Captains who Built Them’ which includes a fascinating insight into the Life of Captain Mathew Martin and his mansion which was large enough, by repute, to have 52 windows and that once existed in vicinity of St Mary’s Church, Wivenhoe Hall and the railway station. Click here
• In June 2019, Pat published her research into The Course of the Brook which runs through Wivenhoe. Click here
• In September 2020, Pat published ‘Who Lived in Wivenhoe in the Eighteenth Century and What did they Do?’ after researching the 1799 map of Wivenhoe with assistance from Clive Dykes and John Foster (from the Wivenhoe History Group), and some additional palaeographic assistance from Patrick Denny. Click here.
• The History of 26 Queens Road which Pat Marsden bought in 1981 is described in detail in this post. Click here.
• Since we launched the Wivenhoe commusnity archive in April 2015, Pat Marsden has added  a great many pages in the section that contains details about Maps, Books, Deeds, Wills & much more. Click here.