Walter Moffitt Marks was an Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n lawyer, yachtsman and politician.

Marks was born in Culwulla House, Jamberoo, New South Wales

Jamberoo, New South Wales

Jamberoo is a small picturesque village approx 11 km inland from Kiama on the South Coast of New South Wales, Australia in the Municipality of Kiama. At the 2006 census, Jamberoo had a population of 935 people...

 and educated at Sydney Grammar School

Sydney Grammar School

Sydney Grammar School is an independent, non-denominational, selective, day school for boys, located in Darlinghurst, Edgecliff and St Ives, all suburbs of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia....

. He was admitted as a solicitor

Solicitor

Solicitors are lawyers who traditionally deal with any legal matter including conducting proceedings in courts. In the United Kingdom, a few Australian states and the Republic of Ireland, the legal profession is split between solicitors and barristers , and a lawyer will usually only hold one title...

 in 1902. In September 1901 he married Florence Sandford. As a result of an inheritance in 1912, he was able to partly finance the building of his chambers, the twelve-storey Culwulla Chambers in Castlereagh Street, Sydney

Castlereagh Street, Sydney

Castlereagh Street is a major north-south street in the centre of the Central Business District of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia .-Description:...

, the tallest building in central Sydney until after World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. He won most major Australian yachting trophies in Culwulla I-IV, and participated in the trials of Sir Thomas Lipton

Thomas Lipton

Sir Thomas Johnstone Lipton, 1st Baronet, KCVO was a Scotsman of Ulster-Scots parentage who was a self-made man, merchant, and yachtsman. He created the Lipton tea brand and was the most persistent challenger in the history of the America's Cup.-Parentage and childhood:Lipton was born in Glasgow...

's America's Cup

America's Cup

The America’s Cup is a trophy awarded to the winner of the America's Cup match races between two yachts. One yacht, known as the defender, represents the yacht club that currently holds the America's Cup and the second yacht, known as the challenger, represents the yacht club that is challenging...

 challenger, Shamrock IV in 1914. In World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 he joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve

Royal Naval Reserve

The Royal Naval Reserve is the volunteer reserve force of the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. The present Royal Naval Reserve was formed in 1958 by merging the original Royal Naval Reserve and the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve , a reserve of civilian volunteers founded in 1903...

 and served as a lieutenant in the North Sea

North Sea

In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...

 and English Channel

English Channel

The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...

, commanded a gunnery school in Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

 and returned to Australia in 1918 to encourage military recruitment.

Marks was elected as a Nationalist

Nationalist Party of Australia

The Nationalist Party of Australia was an Australian political party. It was formed on 17 February 1917 from a merger between the conservative Commonwealth Liberal Party and the National Labor Party, the name given to the pro-conscription defectors from the Australian Labor Party led by Prime...

 member for the seat of Wentworth

Electoral district of Wentworth

Wentworth was a former electoral district for the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of New South Wales established in 1880 and partly replacing Lachlan and named after and including Wentworth. From 1885 until the creation of Sturt in 1889, it elected two members. It was abolished in...

 in 1919. He made a notorious speech predicting that Armageddon

Armageddon

Armageddon is, according to the Bible, the site of a battle during the end times, variously interpreted as either a literal or symbolic location...

 would be initiated in 1934 when the British navy collected the Jewish people to take them to a Palestine

Palestine

Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

. Billy Hughes

Billy Hughes

William Morris "Billy" Hughes, CH, KC, MHR , Australian politician, was the seventh Prime Minister of Australia from 1915 to 1923....

 made him honorary under-secretary "to assist the prime minister especially in the administration of the mandated territories and shipping" in December 1921 in order to head off pressure to appoint him Minister for the Navy, but Stanley Bruce

Stanley Bruce

Stanley Melbourne Bruce, 1st Viscount Bruce of Melbourne, CH, MC, FRS, PC , was an Australian politician and diplomat, and the eighth Prime Minister of Australia. He was the second Australian granted an hereditary peerage of the United Kingdom, but the first whose peerage was formally created...

 abolished this position in 1923

First Bruce Ministry

The First Bruce Ministry was the seventeenth Australian Commonwealth ministry, and ran from 9 February 1923 to 14 November 1925.Nationalist Party of Australia–Australian Country Party Coalition...

. He took a strong interest in foreign affairs, aviation and the film industry. He was one of seven Nationalists, including Billy Hughes, who voted to bring down the Bruce government, forcing the 1929 election

Australian federal election, 1929

Federal elections were held in Australia on 12 October 1929. All 75 seats in the House of Representatives were up for election, with no Senate seats up for election, as a result of Billy Hughes and other rebel backbenchers crossing the floor over industrial relations legislation, depriving the...

. Although he lost Nationalist Party endorsement, he won the election. He was defeated at the 1931 election

Australian federal election, 1931

Federal elections were held in Australia on 19 December 1931. All 75 seats in the House of Representatives, and 18 of the 36 seats in the Senate were up for election...

 by Eric Harrison

Eric Harrison

Sir Eric John Harrison KCMG KCVO was an Australian politician who became the first Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party of Australia....

, although both had United Australia Party

United Australia Party

The United Australia Party was an Australian political party that was founded in 1931 and dissolved in 1945. It was the political successor to the Nationalist Party of Australia and predecessor to the Liberal Party of Australia...

 endorsement. Marks died following surgery in the Sydney suburb of Paddington

Paddington, New South Wales

Paddington is an inner-city, eastern suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Paddington is located 3 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district and lies across the local government areas of the City of Sydney and the Municipality of Woollahra...

, survived by a son and a daughter.