Alexander Brodie Spark
Alexander Brodie Spark , influential merchant, businessman and free settler of Australia, was born onAugust 1792 at Elgin, Scotland.
OnApril 1840, Spark married Frances Maria, ne Biddulph. It seems that, after this marriage, Spark began to lose a great deal of money very quickly, for a number of reasons. Spark had guaranteed loans to people who were now bankrupt or otherwise out of finances, and, by September, a wave of drought, among other things, had caused unrest and nervousness in the money market. To keep himself from facing bankruptcy or becoming broke, and also to help pay for large bills he acquired in March 1841, he sold off much of his land, his shares and his ships. He also mortgaged a town house for 6,000. To make matters worse , Sparks baby was born in April 1841, which meant that he had to support two other people as well as himself. Finally, having had to sell all of his assets to pay for his many debts, Alexander Spark became officially insolvent in 1844. During this time, when Spark was losing so much money so fast, his diary records at length his depression and sadness about the losses. It als
Source: Wikipedia