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History
Born at Verval, county Wicklow, Ireland, 1754; classically educated at schools in Dublin; obtained an appointment from the East India Company and left Gravesend, 1770; reached Bencoolen, Sumatra, 1771; served in Sumatra first as a sub-secretary and afterwards as principal secretary to the government; learnt Malayan; departed for England, 1779; became acquainted with Sir Joseph Banks, 1780; elected Fellow of the Royal Society, 1783; later became its treasurer and vice-president, often presiding during Banks' illness; elected fellow of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta, 1784; Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, 1785; an original member of the Royal Irish Academy, 1785; invested his savings and with his brother John established an East India agency business in Gower Street, London, 1785; honorary degree of DCL, Oxford, 1786; member and treasurer of the Royal Society Club, 1787; accepted the post of second secretary of the admiralty, 1795; member of the Literary Club, 1799; promoted to first secretary of the admiralty, 1804; resigned, 1807; suffered from apoplexy, 1833; died from an apoplectic attack, 1836; buried at the cemetery at Kensal Green, London. Publications include: The History of Sumatra (London, 1783, and later editions); Dictionary of the Malayan Language (London, 1812); The Travels of Marco Polo (1818), translated from the Italian; Numismata Orientalia (London, 1823-5); Bibliotheca Marsdeniana Philologica et Orientalis: a Catalogue of Books and Manuscripts (London, 1827). His autobiography was edited and published by his widow Elizabeth as A Brief Memoir of ... William Marsden (London, 1838).