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An agricultural labourer from Dorset, England, he was sentenced to 10 years for housebreaking in 1850. He arrived in 1852 and received his ticket-of-leave in 1853. In 1860 he became a farmer in the Irwin River, Greenough and Dongara areas.

He and his wife Elizabeth, whom he married in 1859, had nine children. It seemed that he was not a successful farmer, for by the late 1870s he was working in Dongara as a carter. 1887 was a disastrous year for Mark and his family. A fire destroyed the family home. Three months later Mark was kicked by a horse, and died.