(1766?–1831).

Shipbuilder.

Captain David Clark was superintendent of Raine, Ramsay, and Browne's Horeke shipyard from late 1826 to 1830, and there built, launched, and sailed to Sydney on completion the schooner Enterprise (40 tons), the brigantine New Zealander (140 tons), and the barque Sir George Murray (392 tons). Enterprise was wrecked near Hokianga Heads in April 1828; New Zealander, said to have been the fastest sailer out of Port Jackson, was wrecked at Te Mahia in 1836; Sir George Murray, seized on her arrival in Sydney for sailing without a register, was bought by McDonnell. Difficulties in obtaining registers for these vessels led to the recognition of a New Zealand flag in 1834.

After delivering Sir George Murray to Sydney in late 1830, Clark returned to Hokianga in New Zealander in March 1831 and traded at Kohukohu. He was drowned in the following November, aged 65. His son, Hori Karaka Tawhiti, was a member of the House of Representatives for Northern Maori from 1876 to 1879. Tawhiti's mother was Parehuia, daughter of the Ihutai chief Te Wharepapa, who joined Heke in the 1845 war.

by Ruth Miriam Ross, School Teacher and Authoress, North Auckland.

• O.L.C. files (MSS), National Archives
• Wesleyan Missionary Letters (MSS), Turnbull Library
• Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand, Earle, A. (1909)
• New Zealand or Recollections of it, Markham, E. (1963)
• New Zealand, Polack, J. S. (1838).