William Mark (Berwick-upon-Tweed, 1782 - Alhaurín el Grande, 13 January 1849) was a British consul and governor of the British colony in southern Spain, as well as the founder of the English Cemetery in Malaga.
Early years
editBorn into a large, poor family, at the age of eleven he was taken into the home of a textile merchant who taught him the trade. When he was eighteen, he enlisted in the British Royal Navy, where he was well regarded for his knowledge of accountancy.[1]
Three years after enlisting in the Navy, he was invited to dine on the Victory, where he met Admiral Horatio Nelson, under whom he served[2] for some months. This episode was widely celebrated by Mark,[1] who wrote a book about his experiences in the service of the Admiral.[3]
In 1808 he was posted as an accountant to Gibraltar, where he met Emma Bedwell, whom he married in 1810.[1]
Diplomatic career
edit
He was assigned to Malaga to succeed the elderly incumbent consul. Mark and his family arrived in Malaga in 1816, although he did not take up his post as consul until 1824.[1]
Thanks to his efforts as consul to the then governor of Malaga, José Manso, he managed to obtain the concession of a burial place for the British colony in the English Cemetery of Malaga,[4] making it the first of the Anglican Protestant cemeteries to be established in Spain.[5]
Also thanks to his dealings with the Spanish authorities, he managed to rescue the body of young Robert Boyd, who had been shot on the beach of San Andrés, in Málaga, as a result of his participation in the pronunciamiento of the General José María Torrijos. Boyd's body was the first to be buried in the land recently granted to Mark for his cemetery.[6][4]
He served as consul until 1837.[7] He was succeeded by his son, William Penrose Mark, as consul and governor of the British colony in Spain.[2]
Death
editDied in Alhaurín el Grande,[8] near Málaga, on 13 January 1849[6] and was buried in the English Cemetery in Malaga, where he has a funerary monument.[9]
In 2007, the crypt where his grave is located along with seven other members of the Mark family was discovered by chance underneath the monument to his memory. In addition to William Mark's grave, the crypt also contained the graves of his wife Emma B. Mark (Emma Bedwell), three of his children, the wife of one of them and a one-day-old grandson of William Mark.[2]
References
edit- ^ a b c d Ruiz Castillo, José Manuel. "Cónsul Mr. William Mark" [Consul Mr. William Mark]. El cementerio inglés de Gibralfaro (in Spanish). Retrieved 2024-08-15.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ a b c Ferrary, Miguel (2007-09-24). "Descubren la tumba del primer cónsul británico de Málaga" [The tomb of Malaga's first British Consul is discovered]. La Opinión de Málaga (in Spanish). Retrieved 2024-08-15.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Mark, William (1929). At Sea with Nelson: Being the Life of William Mark, a Purser who Served under Admiral Lord Nelson. London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co.
- ^ a b Huertas González, Manuel (2014). "El cementerio inglés de Málaga" [The English cemetery of Malaga] (PDF). Andalucía en la historia (in Spanish) (43): 62–65. ISSN 1695-1956. Retrieved 2024-08-15.
- ^ Grice-Hutchinson, Marjorie (1989). El Cementerio inglés de Málaga y otros estudios [The English Cemetery in Malaga and other studies] (in Spanish). Málaga: Universidad de Málaga. ISBN 978-84-7496-175-1.
- ^ a b Marchant Rivera, Alicia (2013). "El cementerio inglés de Málaga y sus fuentes historiográficas: los libros de viaje femeninos del siglo XIX" [The English cemetery in Malaga and its historiographical sources: 19th century women's travel books] (PDF). La muerte desde la arqueología, la historia y el arte (in Spanish): 75–92. ISBN 978-84-95674-97-5. Retrieved 2024-08-15.
- ^ "William Mark". The British Museum. Retrieved 2024-08-15.
- ^ León, Manuel de (2014-12-31). "El Cónsul William Mark y el cementerio de Málaga" [Consul William Mark and the Málaga cemetery]. Protestante Digital (in Spanish). Retrieved 2024-08-23.
- ^ Marchant Rivera, Alicia (2012-04-24). "Cementerio Inglés de Málaga: Un jardín de la historia cercano al mar" [Malaga English Cemetery: A garden of history by the sea] (PDF). Uciencia (in Spanish) (9): 50–52.