Mark Stewart

Mark Stewart was eighteen years old when he died on the Shelley Headland in Manly on 10 or 11 May 1976. He was the second of three children, born in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, on 18 July 1957.

His family moved to Fiji in 1962, where his father John Spanswick worked for the company Burns Philp. As children, the family visited Sydney on extended holidays from Fiji — staying in Manly or Kings Cross — and Mark knew and loved the coastline around Shelley Beach and the headlands above it.

At thirteen or fourteen, Mark was sent to school in Masterton, New Zealand. In September 1973, aged sixteen, he joined the Royal New Zealand Navy as a cadet. By August 1974 he had deserted — gone absent without leave. The period of his desertion, estrangement from his family, and eventual resettlement in Brisbane is documented only in fragments: letters to his parents, a brief return visit to New Zealand in mid-1975, and the boarding-house records that placed him in Brisbane until 6 May 1976. At some point in this period — either 1974 or early 1976 — he changed his name by deed poll from Mark Spanswick to Mark Stewart.

His parents did not know where he was or what he was doing. His father assumed the name change was connected to the Navy desertion. His mother wrote, in late 1974: “assuming he is alive and has not done anything silly.”

On 9 May 1976 he checked into room 3117 at the Hilton Hotel on George Street in the Sydney CBD, telling the receptionist he intended to stay for two nights. His description of him: slightly built, long curly unruly shoulder-length fair hair, a commanding manner, and what she called “well-educated Public School English.” He was eighteen years old. He had been in Sydney for perhaps a day or two before that.

His body was found two mornings later, on the rocks at the base of the Shelley Headland cliffs.

The Sackar Inquiry was unable to determine whether Mark was a member of the LGBTIQ community. It found there is “objectively reason to suspect that LGBTIQ bias was a factor in his death.” No one has ever been charged.

Source: NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ Hate Crimes (Sackar J, 2023), Vol. 2, Ch. 5, paras 5.96–5.281, pp. 219–252.