Magistrate Patience dies at 95

A former chairman of the magistrates' bench in Wolverhampton and wife of a leading city doctor has died aged 95.

Patience Marshall was involved with several organisations in the city and was awarded an OBE for her work.

She helped set up the St George's Hostel in Tettenhall Road and was involved in the early days of the Marriage Guidance Council, the forerunner of Relate, in Wolverhampton. She was married to Dr Alfred Gordon Marshall, a pathologist at the old Royal Hospital in All Saints.

The couple, who had four children, lived in Riley Crescent, in Penn, before moving to Albert Road, near West Park.

She studied mathematics at Cambridge University but wasn't awarded her degree until the 1990s because she was female. She moved to the Midlands in 1947 when Dr Marshall went to work at the Guest Hospital, Dudley.

Despite a busy home life, Mrs Marshall found time to get involved in several organisations in the town.

Her daughter Caroline Robertson, aged 57, said: "She was an amazingly generous woman and could never say 'no' to anyone who came to her for help.

"She worked with the poor of London in the 1930s before moving to Wolverhampton where she continued in the social work field."

After she was widowed in 1980 she lived briefly in Whitmore Reans before moving to live with her brother Dr John Clayton, related through marriage to the Queen Mother. His practice at Eton College took in Windsor Castle and it was he who attended the royal when she famously got a fishbone stuck in her throat.

Mrs Marshall died last week in Wiltshire where her funeral took place yesterday.

Margaret Marris, mother of Wolverhampton South West MP Rob Marris, who was a friend and fellow magistrate, said: "She was one of Wolverhampton's most notable citizens and one of the great women of the city."