Henry Maitland Clark was a Northern Irish colonial administrator and politician.
Occupation
politician, journalist
Position held
member of the 44th Parliament of the United Kingdom, member of the 43rd Parliament of the United Kingdom, member of the 42nd Parliament of the United Kingdom, substitute member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
Citizenship
United Kingdom
Born
April 11, 1929
Died
March 24, 2012
Overview
Henry Maitland Clark (11 April 1929 – 24 March 2012) was a Northern Irish colonial administrator and politician.
Background
Relatives of James Chichester-Clark, Clark's family had been settled in Upperlands in County Londonderry for generations, where they owned a substantial linen mill. Clark, the younger brother of sailor and writer Wallace Clark, was educated at Shrewsbury School, Trinity College Dublin and Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He served with the Colonial Service on coming down from Cambridge and was appointed becoming a District Officer in Tanganyika, where he later served as District Commissioner.
Parliament
In 1959 Clark resigned from the Colonial Service to enter Parliament as Ulster Unionist MP for Antrim North. Throughout Clark's time in Parliament, the Ulster Unionists received the Conservative whip, though retaining an independent identity and Council, and Clark sat on the Government, and later Opposition, benches with Conservative MPs from Great Britain. Clark chaired the Conservative MPs' East Africa Committee in 1963-65 and was a part of the British Parliamentary delegation to the Council of Europe and the Western European Union from 1962 to 1965.
Clark's background in the Colonial Service and his abiding interest in East Africa led to his appointment as an electoral observer. He led the British delegation observing the election in Uganda in 1965 and was a member of the Commonwealth delegation observing the Mauritius election in 1967.