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Author Topic: From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography - Marindin, Sir Francis Arthur (1838–1900)  (Read 75 times)

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Timbo

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From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Marindin, Sir Francis Arthur

(1838–1900)

by M A Bryant

https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/53587

Published in print: 23 September 2004
Published online: 23 September 2004

Marindin, Sir Francis Arthur (1838–1900), soldier, railway inspector, and football administrator, was born in Weymouth, Dorset, on 1 May 1838. Of Huguenot descent, he was the second son of the Revd Samuel Marindin (1807–1852), originally from Chesterton in Shropshire, and his wife, Isabella, the daughter of Andrew Wedderburn Colville of Ochiltree, Craigflower, Fife. He was educated at Eton College and at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, before being commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1854. In 1860 he married Kathleen Mary, the daughter of Sir William Stevenson, governor-general of Mauritius, whom Marindin served as aide-de-camp and private secretary between 1860 and 1863. In 1868 he was appointed as adjutant at the Chatham School of Military Engineering, and in 1869 he became brigade major, before retiring from the Royal Engineers as major in 1879. He later became an honorary colonel in the engineer and railway volunteer staff corps.

Marindin joined the Board of Trade in 1877 as inspecting officer of railways, and it was in this field that he received most public recognition, being appointed a CMG in 1887, for services to the Egyptian State Railways, and KCMG in 1897. Marindin's inquiries into railway accidents led to the reform of working practices and the introduction of a number of safety measures designed to protect railway company employees.

Marindin's appointment to Chatham coincided with the early dominance of the Royal Engineers in association football. On the football field Marindin was described as 'clever and shrewd', and as a 'tall, well-built, broad shouldered back' who played up 'the lines' for the 'Sappers' (Ward, 25). This team was described as the 'first to show the advantages of combination over the old style of individualism' (ibid., 24–5), and in 1873 undertook the first football tour, visiting Nottingham, Derby, and Sheffield; it thereby set a pattern of touring which was to be followed by other teams, most famously by the Corinthians. After he ceased playing, Marindin continued to referee matches, a role which he considered as part of his duties as president of the Football Association (FA). Players were said to 'dread his frown'. Professionals referred to him as 'The Majaw', but although aristocratic in upbringing, Marindin was described as 'not dandy or la-de-da' (ibid., 24).

It was as an official that Marindin had most influence in shaping the development of the game. In 1869 he became chairman of the committee of the FA, and in 1874 he succeeded S. H. Bartholomew as FA president, a position he held until 1890. Marindin presided over a period of transition which saw the game of association football transformed from a pleasure pursuit of the few to a pastime and spectacle for the masses. Marindin was part of a powerful coalition of amateur administrators who oversaw the acceptance of open professionalism in the laws of the game. Together with such men as Arthur Kinnaird and Charles Alcock, Marindin recognized that professionalism was a part of the way the game had developed in the north, and that if the FA simply outlawed the professional player the game would split, and would cease to be a national pastime. They argued that professionalism should be accepted, but controlled, and the proposal to legalize it was passed by thirty-five votes to fifteen at a special general meeting of the FA held at Anderton's Hotel, Fleet Street, London, on 20 July 1885.

Marindin resigned as president of the FA five years later, a decision which some contemporaries attributed to his growing disenchantment with the development of the professional game, and his dislike of imported Scottish professionals was well known. He died on 21 April 1900 at his home, 3 Hans Crescent, London, and was buried at Craigflower, Dunfermline. His wife and their only child, a daughter, survived him.

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