Robert Mark
Sir Robert Mark GBE QPM (13 March 1917 – 30 September 2010) was an English police officer who served as Chief Constable of Leicester City Police, and later as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police from 1972 to 1977.
Mark was the first Metropolitan Commissioner to have risen through all the ranks from the lowest to the highest (a route followed by all subsequent Commissioners), although a few predecessors had served as Constables prior to fast-track promotion.
Early life
Mark was born in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, a suburb of Manchester, the youngest of five children of a prosperous mantle manufacturer originally from Yorkshire. He was educated at William Hulme's Grammar School, where he was undistinguished academically, but became captain of rugby and head prefect.
Police career begins
When he left school in 1935 he got a job as a carpet salesman, but finding this boring, in 1937 he joined Manchester City Police as a Constable, much to the dismay of his father, who considered it beneath him and said becoming a policeman was only one step above going to prison. While still a probationer he joined the plain clothes branch, mainly dealing with vice, and in 1938 he joined Special Branch.
