Marshall, Robert (1889–1975), doctor, was born 9 September 1899 in Belfast, son of W. J. Marshall, tailor and JP, and Bertha Marshall (née Shaw). He was educated (1897–1906) at Methodist College, Belfast, later becoming a life governor (1930) and chairman of the board of governors during the school's centenary year. He graduated MB, B.Ch. BAO (1912), DPH (1918), and MD (1920) from QUB, which subsequently honoured him with an LLD (1970). He trained in cardiology as resident medical officer at the National Hospital for Diseases of the Heart, London (1914), before serving in the First and Third Cavalry Divisions in France as captain with the RAMC (1914–17).
Returning to Belfast, he was appointed assisting physician (1924), attending physician (1930), and subsequently visiting physician of the Royal Victoria Hospital until his retirement in 1954, when he became hon. consulting physician (1954–75); he was also a governor of the hospital. He had a keen interest in cardiology, owned his own electrocardiograph, published papers in the speciality, and engaged in bitter rivalry with his colleague, S. B. B. Campbell (1890–1971), who superintended the ECG department. He also served as physician to the Ulster Hospital for Children and Women. He lectured in clinical medicine and was a senator at QUB, and external examiner in medicine at Glasgow University and TCD.
An active member of the British Medical Association, he served as a representative at the annual meetings, as a member of the Central Consultants and Specialists Committee, and as president (1955–6) of the Northern Ireland branch of the BMA, of which he was elected fellow in 1960. A leading medical figure in Ulster, he achieved the unusual feat of being awarded honorary fellowships of the RCPI (1921; he served as censor 1930–33), of the RCP, London (1947), and of the RCPS, Glasgow (1964). Other distinctions included hon. membership of the Post-Graduate Medical Association of America, fellowship and presidency (1942–3) of the Ulster Medical Society, and editorship (1944–50) and subsequently membership of the editorial committee of the Ulster Medical Journal. He published The book of Belfast (1937) and Fifty years on the Grosvenor Road: an account of the rise and progress of the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, during the years 1903–53 (1953), and was a frequent contributor to medical journals. A man of strong principles and a perfectionist in all he did, he was deeply committed and generous to all the associations to which he belonged, and was a trustee of the Methodist Church of Ireland and of University Road methodist church, Belfast. He died 24 March 1975 at his home, 3 Harberton Avenue, Belfast, and was cremated at Roselawn crematorium, Belfast.
He married (1916) Evelyn Mary (‘May’) Marshall; they had a son, Robert William Stanley, who served as a houseman in the Royal Victoria Hospital before joining the RAF Volunteer Reserve and was killed (1945) as a squadron leader on active service in the Far East; and a daughter, Dorothy, who married Desmond Neill (1951–86), the first full-time biochemist of the Royal Victoria Hospital.