Radio technician, television pioneer, musician.
Born at Winnipeg on 13 August 1920, son of WIlliam John Marshall (1896-1949) and Dulcie Kate Ealing (1893-1991), of English, Irish, Scottish, and Anglo-Metis ancestry, his childhood was spent in the St. Vital area where he attended Glenlawn Collegiate. At a relative young age, he became a HAM radio operator as the 202nd licence in Manitoba with call sign VE4CX.
In 1939, at the outbreak of the Second World War, he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force and spent six years as a radio mechanic in Manitoba and Newfoundland. An accomplished musician, while stationed at the No. 1 Air Navigation School he hosted and played piano on an evening radio program for CKX Brandon. In Newfoundland, he played in the Air Force Dance Band, the Gremlins, during which he played piano as part of the band at a June 1945 tour performance in Gander headlined by Frank Sinatra and Phil Silvers.
Following his military discharge, he returned to Winnipeg where he worked briefly for CKY Radio before becoming a radio and avionics technician at Trans-Canada Airlines (today, Air Canada), serving until retirement in 1978. He also taught evening courses in radio and television in the adult education program at Tec Voc High School.
In 1946, he married Irene Janet Stewart (1923-1999) of Minnedosa and they subsequently had two daughters and a son. The family lived at 370 Centennial Street. Working from his basement workshop, in 1953 he made what is believed to be Winnipeg’s first television transmission, a few months before it came to CBC Manitoba. As an active amateur radio operator he was also believed to be the first amateur radio TV station in Canada. He played piano in the Highwayman Orchestra and the Bud McIntosh Orchestra. After retirement, he performed aboard the MS Lord Selkirk II on Lake Winnipeg. As an amateur astronomer, he constructed a telescope, including grinding and polishing the mirror, which he later donated to the St. John's Cathedral Boys' School. From his family cottage on Lake Winnipeg at Boulder Bay, where he was a perennial builder and handyman, he sailed a catamaran for many years.
An avid swimmer, he died suddenly while swimming at the Pan Am Pool in Winnipeg on 9 June 1999 and was interred in the Chapel Lawn Memorial Gardens.
Birth registration [Francis John Mervyn Marshall], Manitoba Vital Statistics.
“Winnipegger beats CBC-TV to the punch: He's 1st local telecaster” by Bob Metcalfe, Wfinnipeg Tribune, 14 January 1953.
Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 13 June 1999, page 66.
Obituary [Irene Janet Marshall], Winnipeg Free Press, 14 October 1999.
This page was prepared by John Perrin and Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 7 July 2026
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