Dame Margaret Florence Clark (28 January 1941 – 11 September 2026), known for a time by her married name of Margaret Clark Roff, was a New Zealand political science academic. She was the first New Zealand woman to be made a professor in political science and an emeritus professor of politics at Victoria University of Wellington.
Contents
Background and education
Born in Wellington on 28 January 1941, Clark was educated at Wellington East Girls' College. She went on to study at Wellington Teachers' Training College and Victoria University College, completing a Bachelor of Arts in politics at the latter institution in 1960. After winning a Rotary Foundation Fellowship, she undertook further study at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur from 1962 to 1963, graduating Master of Arts in 1964, and later doctoral studies at Columbia University in New York City from 1969 to 1972, gaining a PhD. Her doctoral thesis was titled Political charge in east Malaysia, 1962–1972: organisation, mobilisation, and incorporation.
Clark was married to historian William R. Roff until they divorced in 1977. On 21 April 1980 in Wellington, Clark married Bernie Galvin, who served as secretary to the treasury from 1980 to 1986, and she became stepmother to his four children including Michael Galvin. Galvin died in 2010. Clark died at a retirement village in the Wellington suburb of Kilbirnie on 11 September 2026, at the age of 85.