Marshall Claxton

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Marshall Claxton (12 May 1811 – 28 July 1881) was an English painter.

Claxton was born in Bolton, Lancashire, the son of a Wesleyan Methodist minister Rev. Marshal Claxton and his wife Diana. Marshall studied under John Jackson, R.A., and at the Royal Academy school where he enrolled on 26 April 1831, and had his first picture in the Royal Academy, a portrait of his father in 1832. In subsequent years about 30 of his pictures were shown at Academy exhibitions. In 1834 he was awarded the first medal in the painting school, and obtained the gold medal of the Society of Arts in 1835 for his portrait of Sir Astley Cooper. From 1837 to 1842 he worked in Italy and then returned to London, gaining a prize of £100 for his "Alfred the Great in the Camp of the Danes".

In 1850 Claxton went to Sydney, Australia with a large collection of pictures, but had little success in selling them. While in Sydney he painted a large picture, "Suffer little children to come unto me", a commission from the Baroness Burdett Coutts. This was described in Household Words as 'the first important picture' painted in Australia. In September 1854 Claxton left Sydney for Calcutta, where he sold several of his pictures. He returned to England in 1858 via Egypt and died at London after a long illness on 28 July 1881. He married and had two daughters, Adelaide and Florence A. Claxton, both of whom were represented in Royal Academy exhibitions between 1859 and 1867.

Claxton's "General View of the Harbour and City of Sydney" is in the royal collection in England, and there are two pictures by him in the Dickinson collection at the national gallery, Sydney. His portraits of Bishop William Broughton and Dean Cowper are at St Paul's College, University of Sydney, and that of the Rev. Robert Forrest in The King's School, Parramatta.