Sir Edward Howard Marsh (1872–1953) was a civil servant, scholar and patron of contemporary art. His extensive collection of works on paper of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries at one time included eighteen drawings by or attributed to Girtin, including a number of his colaborations with Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1852). Many of these were amongst the 200 or so drawings that he bought from Herbert Horne (1864–1916) in May 1904 (Feather, 2014, pp.224–25; Marsh, 1939, p.353). In turn most of these were sold to fellow collectors, leaving eight drawings by Girtin to be distributed to various public galleries at his death.