The Life and Loves of Mark Foy

The book

Mark Foy (1865 to 1950) founded the Sydney Flying Squadron in 1891. This book is about the rest of his life. Drawing on family photographs, letters and records, the Blue Mountains historian Jim Smith follows the fortune Foy made from the family store, Mark Foy's, his faith in cold-water cures, and the hydropathic resort he opened at Medlow Bath in 1904, which became the Hydro Majestic. It covers the hotel's famous costume balls, his long travels and his private life, and the ventures that failed him: land, mining, American cotton, horse breeding and patents.

None of the descriptions of the book mentions the Squadron or Foy's sailing; for those, start with the club's own page on Mark Foy. The club sold the book from its office in 2021, at $34.99, beside its own.

The author

Jim Smith is a Blue Mountains historian and the longest-serving member of the Blue Mountains Historical Society. His books since 1980 cover the mountains' walking tracks, the Six Foot Track and the Aboriginal people of the Burragorang Valley, and lately the Hydro Majestic. Its companion, The Hydro Majestic: the story of Mark Foy's 'palace in a wilderness' (2021), tells the hotel's own story.

Megalong Books in Leura had copies. Blue Mountains City Library lends it.

• Megalong Books, Leura, paperback: A$45.00

Prices as the sellers listed them on 28 October 2026.

Libraries that hold it: National Library of Australia, Blue Mountains City Library, Blue Mountains Historical Society.