On 14 July 1852, Marwick left Perth to travel 100 kilometres on foot to Tipperary, near York, to work for Samuel Evans Burges.
I was at that time 11 stone and 5 feet 11 inches high, and was offered £1 a month and tucker and find my own knife, fork and pannikin, and bed and rugs, or do without, which I had to do until others were finished using them.
I saw as fine linen as ever were in this State or any other in the 50s working for £1 pound per month and tucker, rough but plenty of it.
I used to pay my men with orders on my master,[a] and my banker was Mr Samuel Craig, and I would deliver sandalwood to him.
[2]: 12 and 13 I ... purchased a team, and for 20 years carted between York and Fremantle, the journey to and fro taking seven days.
[2]: 12 and 13 [10] On Monger's advice, Marwick began to buy land in and around York, and built himself a house...... Monger bought up 25 grants at Red Swamp Hill in the York area and sold them to Marwick for the same price he had paid for them.
[2]: 12 Marwick was friends with former convict and baker Henry Beard and his de facto wife Mary Ann Taylor - Batty.
William settled in with Mary Ann Taylor-Batty in York and they had six children together, including future politician Warren Marwick-And a founder of Westfarmers.
[5]: 30 and 31 Resident Magistrate Walkinshaw Cowan kept pigs at his home which frequently wandered to Marwick's wheat stack.
Marwick resorted to writing to the paper, complaining about the situation and Cowan's 16-year-old boy being appointed pound-keeper.
[2]: 14 An advertisement on 24 November 1877 offered timber and other building materials for sale, and horses and drays for hire, as well as carting "to any part of the Colony".
[2]: 14 Marwick continued to run teams to Fremantle and back until the York railway line was completed in 1885.
On returning to what is known as Southern Cross we met the prospectors (Risely and party) who had only discovered it a few days before.
I afterwards opened a direct road from York to Southern Cross, and on behalf of the Government excavated tanks and dams along the route.
[1]I was bondsman for the mail contractor for the service between York and Southern Cross, and on his failing to continue I was called upon by the Government to take it up or forfeit the amount of the bond.
I ran coaches from the head of the Yilgarn line to Southern Cross until April 1894, when in conjunction with Messrs Saw, Wilkinson, Milne, Farren and Wilson, I started the Coolgardie Coaching Company, and for months we experienced very bad times, water being 1s per gallon, and horsefeed correspondingly high.
In August we purchased Mr Cohn's plant and secured the title of Cobb & Co. After the railway started from Southern Cross, we experienced brighter times, owing to good rains and increased traffic.
[16] He returned to Australia and toured the Eastern States, and in 1905 married Mary Ann in York.
He returned to Western Australia again in 1914, visiting his old friend Frank Craig in Balingup and touring the South-West.