Thomas Mark

Infobox Officeholder
name =Thomas Mark


caption =
office =Public Service Commissioner
term_start =1936
term_end =1941
primeminister =Michael Joseph Savage, Peter Fraser
predecessor =Paul N.D. Verschaffelt CMG
successor =John H. Boyes CMG
birth_place =Waiatahuna

Thomas Mark (1887 - 9 June 1941) was the fourth Public Service Commissioner in New Zealand. He was a conservative in favour of a non-political public service. In 1936 the Labour government would have preferred John H. Boyes to Thomas Mark, the logical appointment as Public Service Commissioner, so appointed Boyes and Mark as co-equal Joint Commissioners. There was an awkward two years, before Boyes was appointed to establish the new Social Security Department.

Mark died in his Minister's office. He ‘courageously defied a minister over the issue of inspecting a sub-department and compelling the resignation of its head’ before dying of heart failure in the minister’s office in the middle of the confrontation [ [http://www.ssc.govt.nz/display/document.asp?docid=2087&PageType=content&displaytype=pf History of the Office of the State Services Commissioner] ] according to the State Services Commission website. But the obituaries in the two Wellington newspapers say he was on his way to the office of the Minister of Justice and Education, Mr Mason, and was in the passageway outside the minister’s office when he collapsed. He was 54 years old, and was born in Waitahuna.

He was survived by his wife Daisy, 5 sons and 2 daughters.

References

*"Obituary" in Dominion of 10 June 1941 & Evening Post of 9 June 1941
*cite book|author=Henderson, Alan|title=The Quest for Efficiency:The Origins of the State Services Commission|ISBN=0477055389