Background
Mark was born on November 23, 1922, at States Mines, East Rand, Transvaal in South Africa.
Mark was born on November 23, 1922, at States Mines, East Rand, Transvaal in South Africa.
Taken a year later to Rhodesia where he was educated at St George’s College, Salisbury.
From 1940 to 1945 he served as an officer with the King’s Royal Rifle Corps in the Middle East, Italy and Greece. After demobilisation he made his name as a company director and won the Greendale seat as Rhodesian Front candidate at the elections in December 1962. Three years later he became a cabinet minister as a hard-liner opposed to what he termed any handover to “incapable and irresponsible hands”.
His Property Owners (Residential Protection) Bill of June 1967 sought to end infiltration of non-whites into European areas. Yet at the Rhodesian Front congress in September 1967 he faced a motion of no-confidence after accusations that he was not strict enough on Asians and Coloureds. This was overwhelmingly defeated after his speech answering his critics in which he is reported to have said: “There’s nothing I hate more than a coolie (Asian) shop.” He brought in further residential restrictions in November 1970, making it possible for an application by 15 residents to keep their area racially exclusive. His promotion from the Minister of Local Government and Housing in May 1973 was political recognition of his capacity to work hard.
Conscientious minister sometimes suspected of being too right-wing sometimes in the dock for being too liberal; often involved in controversy over racial restrictions on residential areas. His enthusiasm as a South-African bom settler for Transvaal-type segregation policies led him to propose a Race Classification Tribunal for Rhodesia. Yet his reluctance to be doctrinaire and keep all African townships in tribal areas when it could cause economic difficulties in having labour far from employment centres has aroused backbench taunts against him for being too soft.