John MARSHAM was the son of Sir John MARSHAM,
1st Baronet (23 August 1602 – 25 May 1685) who
was an English antiquary known as a writer
on chronology. He was also a chancery clerk
and politician who sat in the House of Commons
from 1660 to 1661.

His father, John MARSHAM was second son
of Thomas MARSHAM, alderman of London,
by Magdalen, daughter of Richard SPRINGHAM,
a London merchant. After attending Westminster School,
John's father matriculated at St John's College,
Oxford, on 22 October 1619; he graduated B.A.
on 17 February 1623, M.A. on 5 July 1625.

His father spent the winter of 1625 in Paris.
In 1626 and 1627, he traveled in France, Italy, and Germany, and then returned to London, where he
became a member of the Middle Temple in 1627.

In 1629, the senior John MARSHAM went through
Holland and Gelderland to the siege of
Hertogenbosch in Brabant; and then by Flushing
to Boulogne and Paris in the retinue of Sir Thomas EDMONDES, ambassador extraordinary at the court
of Louis XIII.

John MARSHAM, Sr. was made one of the six clerks in chancery on 15 February 1638.

On the outbreak of the First English Civil War
he followed the king to Oxford, and was consequently deprived of his place by Parliament. After the
surrender of Oxford he returned to London (1646), and having compounded for his estate, he lived in
retirement at his seat of Whorn Place, in the parish of Cuxton, Kent County, England.

In April 1660, his father was elected a Member of Parliament for Rochester in the Convention Parliament.

At the Restoration, he was restored to his place in chancery, and was knighted.

On 12 August 1663 he was created a baronet.
He was allowed to hand over his clerkship to
his son Robert on 20 October 1680, the brother of
John MARSHAM, Jr.

The father, John MARSHAM died at Bushey Hall, Hertfordshire,England on 25 May 1685, and
was buried in Cuxton Church.

By Elizabeth (1612–1689), daughter of
Sir William HAMMOND of St. Albans Court
in Nonington, Kent County, England he had
two sons: John and Robert, and a daughter Elizabeth.

He was succeeded initially by the eldest son John,
who purchased the Mote in Maidstone and
who died in 1692 then High Sheriff of Kent,
but when John's own son John died young the
baronetcy and Mote estate reverted to Robert.

Said MARSHAM had a reputation in his day for
his knowledge of history, chronology, and languages. According to Wotton, Marsham was the first who made Egyptian antiquities intelligible.

HALLAM also commended his work. He wrote Diatriba Chronologica, London, 1649, a dissertation in
which he examined difficulties in the chronology
of the Old Testament.

Most of it was afterwards inserted in his more
elaborate Chronicus Canon Ægypticus, Ebraicus,
Græcus, et disquisitiones, London, 1672, a beautifully printed book (other editions, 4to, Leipzig, 1676,
and 4 to, Franeker, 1699, but both inaccurate).

He wrote also the preface to the first volume of Roger DODSWORTH and William DUGDALE's Monasticon Anglicanum (1655), which is entitled Propylaion Johannis Marshami;
it is a complex survey of English monasticism.

He left unfinished Canonis Chronici liber quintus: sive Imperium Persicum, De Provinciis et Legionibus Romanis,
De re nummaria, and other treatises.

His nephew Thomas STANLEY dedicated to him his
History of Philosophy (1655).