Ernest Walker Marwick (1915–1977) was a Scottish writer, folklorist and antiquarian particularly noted for his texts on Orkney folklore and history.

Marwick’s father was a travelling salesman who had a smallholding in the parish of Evie, to the north of Mainland, Orkney. Diagnosed with scoliosis in 1925 when he was ten-years-old, Marwick could no longer attend school as his days had to be spent lying on a wooden board. He used the time of illness to read extensively.[1]

After Marwick’s marriage his home provided a meeting place for local intellectuals, including George Mackay Brown and Robert Rendall.[2] His Anthology of Orkney Verse was published in 1949.[3] From 1955 to 1960 he was on the staff of the Orkney Herald newspaper. He subsequently moved to The Orcadian, his writing covering literary subjects.[4] Other media work undertaken by Marwick included broadcasting on local and Scottish national radio programmes.[5]

A founder member of the Orkney Heritage Society,[6] Marwick died in July 1977, having swerved off a straight road and crashed into a farmstead while driving.[7] In 2015, one hundred years after his birth, Orkney International Science Festival focused attention on the contributions he made to Orkney’s heritage.[8]

Selected works

  • An Anthology of Orkney Verse (1949)
  • The Folklore of Orkney and Shetland (1975)

References

  1. pp. 91, 92
  2. p. 94
  3. p. 40
  4. pp. 82, 99
  5.  
  6. p. xvi
  7. p. 259
  8.  

Bibliography

Fergusson, Maggie. George Mackay Brown: The Life. John Murray, 2006.
Ljosland, Ragnhild. Ernest Marwick the Folklorist. https://pure.uhi.ac.uk/portal/files/1813366/Ernest_Marwick_the_folklorist.pdf.
Murray, Rowena, and Brian Murray. Interrogation of Silence: The Writings of George Mackay Brown. John Murray, 2004.
Orkney International Science Festival. Programme 2015. http://oisf.org/programme-2015/.
Robertson, John D. M. “Introduction.” An Orkney Anthology: The Selected Works of Ernest Walker Marwick, Scottish Academic Press, 1991.