Thomas Marden

Major General Sir Thomas Owen Marden KBE, CB, CMG (15 September 1866 – 11 September 1951) was a British Army officer, active during the Boer War and the First World War, where he commanded a battalion of the Welch Regiment, a brigade, and finally 6th Division. Following the war, he commanded a British occupying force in Turkey during the Chanak Crisis in the early 1920s.

Early career
Marden attended Berkhamsted School and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, before joining the Cheshire Regiment in 1886. He saw service with his regiment in Burma in 1887 to 1889, during the colonial campaigns following the Third Anglo-Burmese War, and on special service during 1900 in the Boer War, where he was mentioned in despatches. He returned to England to attend the Staff College, Camberley, graduating in 1902 and posted to staff duties in India as a deputy assistant adjutant-general. In 1904 he was posted to the Directorate of Training at the War Office, moving to a staff posting in South Africa in 1910.

Whilst on staff duties, in 1905, he had been promoted to a majority in the Northumberland Fusiliers, and in 1908 transferred into the Welch Regiment. In 1912 he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel, and left South Africa in order to take up command of the 1st Battalion, Welch Regiment.

First World War
At the outbreak of the First World War, Marden's battalion was stationed in India; it was brought back to the United Kingdom and allocated to 28th Division, which was to be sent to the Mediterranean. Whilst passing through France, units of the division were used to support operations on the Western Front, and Marden was wounded by shrapnel whilst commanding his battalion at the Second Battle of Ypres.

Later in 1915, he was promoted to command 114th Infantry Brigade in 38th (Welsh) Division. He commanded the brigade until mid-1917, during which time it fought at the Battle of the Somme, where it took heavy losses, and on the first day of the Third Battle of Ypres. In August 1917 he was again promoted to command 6th Division, which he commanded at the Battle of Cambrai and in the Hundred Days Offensive. Following the Armistice, he commanded a brigade in the occupying British Army of the Rhine.

For his services during the War, he was mentioned in despatches eight times, and made a Companion of the Order of the Bath and a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George, as well as being made an officer of the French Légion d'Honneur and the Russian Order of St. Vladimir (fourth class, swords), and awarded the Croix de Guerre with palm.

Later service
In 1920, Marden was given command of the British division occupying Constantinople. During the Chanak Crisis of 1922 he played a key role in negotiating a peaceful settlement between British and Turkish forces, for which he later received a knighthood. He returned home in 1923 to take command of the 53rd (Welsh) Division in the Territorial Army before retiring in June 1927. He held the ceremonial colonelcy of the Welch Regiment from 1920 to 1941.

In 1920, he wrote a short history of 6th Division from 1914 to 1918, and in 1932 wrote a history of the Welch Regiment during the same period.

He died at Folkestone, Kent, in 1951 aged eighty-four and was buried St Martin's churchyard at nearby Cheriton.