T.F Marshall was born in Liverpool in December 1818, early on showed great promise as an artist. His practice chiefly lay in Manchester and his native town. To the Liverpool Academy Exhibition of 1836 he contributed four pictures. In 1840 he was awarded a silver medal by the Society of Arts for an oil-painting of a figure subject, he exhibited for the first of many times at he Royal Academy in 1839. About 1847 he removed to London. At the Royal Academy he exhibited in all sixty works, at the British Institute forty, and at the Suffolk Street Gallery forty- two ; but he was throughout his life always well represented at the Liverpool and Manchester exhibitions, and probably most of his best works are to be found in South Lancashire. He had a versatile talent, and practised with success; portraiture, landscape, genre, and history. In the national collection at South Kensington he is represented by 'The Coming Footstep' (1847). 'The Parting Day' and 'Sad News from the Seat of War' are also good examples of his work.

He died at Kensington on 26 March 1878.