The son of a watchmaker, Spark had a literary education in his hometown of Elgin, learnt to speak and studied French, and acquired an interest in astronomy.

During this journey, Spark met and spent several days with renowned poet William Wordsworth and a few members of his family, including his wife and sister.

After being granted a letter of recommendation as a free settler, Spark voyaged on the Princess Charlotte to arrive in Sydney in April 1823.

Additionally, Spark worked as a sort of agent for farmers and country settlers by purchasing their produce and selling them supplies such as livestock and stores, as well as the occasional ploughman or overseer.

In 1835, the designer John Verge (who also built Elizabeth Bay House) helped Spark complete his property, now named Tusculum outside of Wolloomooloo Hill (now known as Potts Point).

With all of his business-related and social partakings and engagements, Spark's new home, after it had been designed and built, became something of a rendezvous for many of the people he was associated with – bankers, merchants, landowners and magistrates he met on his regular visits to the Hunter River region.

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 (£21,000 worth) he acquired in March 1841, he sold off much of his land, his shares and his ships.

He also played golf on a regular basis, fished in Cook's River (where he also bathed, on occasion) and liked to read books for leisure.

[1] Spark was widely concerned with public affairs, and was very active in that regard, but was mostly too patronising to have much effect on people less wealthy than himself; for all that he represented, he never had a deep identity with Australia, where he spent much of his life.