Peter Davis

Peter Byard Davis (born 25 April 1947) is a New Zealand sociologist, professor, and the husband of Helen Clark, who was the Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1999 to 2008. Early life Davis was born in Milford on Sea, Hampshire, England, on 25 April 1947, and spent his childhood in Tanzania, where his father worked for a mining company. His father was born in China and his mother in India, but a great-great-grandfather had grown up in New Zealand. Davis gained a master's degree in sociology and statistics at the London School of Economics. He moved to New Zealand in 1970 to work at the University of Canterbury and completed a PhD at the University of Auckland. He became a naturalised New Zealander in 1972. He was part of a team investigating oral health in New Zealand and was joint editor of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology. In 1976 he was appointed a lecturer at the University of Auckland school of medicine. In 1980 he stood unsuccessfully for the Auckland City Council on a Labour Party ticket. Personal life Davis met Clark, then a political-science lecturer at Auckland, in 1977 and they married in 1981.