Edward Marston(1825-1914), publisher, writer, and angler, went to London in 1846 to work for Sampson Low, who had a bookshop, circulating library, and reading-room in Lamb's Conduit Street. Low also owned and edited the Publishers' Circular, a trade weekly: Marston was assigned to collect titles of newly published books from local publishers and Stationers' Hall, and later he would make the rounds of booksellers throughout the United Kingdom. He would eventually become chairman of Publishers' Circular Ltd.

In 1852 Marston left Sampson Low to set up an Australian import-export business in Fenchurch Street. Shipping books to Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide proved to be a profitable sideline which blossomed into a major business. Since Sampson Low and his son, Sampson Low jun., had developed a similar trade with the United States, Marston became their partner on 1 January 1856. Samuel Warren Searle joined the partnership in 1872, followed by William John Rivington and, in 1883, Marston's son Robert (b. 1853). Sampson Low retired in 1875. (Adapted from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)