In 1955, she became the first female lecturer from the Cook Islands at Nikao Teachers College. During this time she also worked on developing primary school readers in the
Cook Islands Māori language. At a dance in 1955 she met her future partner,
Ron Crocombe. Ron had come to Rarotonga initially as Clerk of Works in the Public Works Department and was then appointed as Resident Agent on
Atiu.They were married in 1959 in
Masterton, NZ and a 50-year partnership began. That same year, Marjorie accompanied Ron to
Canberra where he had been offered a PhD scholarship in
Pacific History at the
Australian National University (ANU). She was initially barred from entering Australia under the “
White Australia” policy, but finally, under protest, was allowed entry. While Ron worked on his thesis, Marjorie commenced work on
The Works of Ta’unga; Records of a Polynesian Traveller in the Southern Seas, 1833–1896 (Australian National University Press, 1968). This work, (co-edited with Ron) “combined the two strands of
ethnohistory and an Islands-focused
historiography” to become one of the foundational texts of Pacific History (Lal and Munro 2006). In 1962, Ron and Marjorie and their family moved to live and work in
Papua New Guinea following Ron's appointment as Executive Officer, and from 1965, Director of Australian National University's
New Guinea Research Unit. In
Port Moresby, Marjorie became a lecturer at the Teachers College and the Administrative College, as well as conducting a regular
ABC radio broadcast “Malanga Moana” covering Pacific music and current affairs (1966–9). In 1965 during sabbatical, she undertook a part-time Anthropology degree at the
University of California, Los Angeles and in 1968, studies in Pacific history at the
University of Hawaiʻi. In 1967 she began a degree at the
University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG), studying creative writing under
Ulli and Georgina Beier and undertook research into the work of the influential Mangaian missionaries to Papua, Ruatoka and his wife Tungane. All this was achieved in addition to bringing up 2 children without added help, for Ron and Marjorie refused on principle to employ domestic servants. In 1969 the family moved to
Suva, following Ron's appointment as Foundation Professor of Pacific Studies at the newly established
University of the South Pacific. At the University of the South Pacific, Marjorie completed her Arts degree majoring in History and Education. Influenced by her creative writing teachers at University of Papua New Guinea, she helped establish and became first President of the South Pacific Creative Arts Society (SPACS), a post she retained for 23 years (1977 – 2000). SPACS provided a platform for a ‘New Wave of Pacific Writers’ through its journal
Mana with Marjorie as Editor. The importance of her editorial contribution is matched by her academic and creative work. Many of the early writers published in
Mana, including
Albert Wendt, Konai Thaman, the late
Alistair Te Ariki Campbell and the late
Grace Molisa, were or became internationally famous writers and scholars, leading the Cook Islands academic Emma Powell to wonder, would there have been a Pacific Literature at all if Marjorie and her colleagues had not established SPACS and sustained
Mana with their own tireless work? “Writers and publishers from the wider region,” writes Dr Linda Crowl “owe a deep debt to Marjorie’s foresight and generosity.” In 1974 Marjorie completed her Master of Arts degree at University of Papua New Guinea with a dissertation entitled -
Maretu’s Narrative of Cook Islands History - later published as
Cannibals and Converts Radical Change in the Cook Islands (USP Press, 1983). At USP, both Ron and Marjorie were indefatigable advocates of a decentralized university with Ron writing and teaching the first ever degree level correspondence course offered by USP Extension,
An Introduction to Pacific Land Tenure in 1974. At the same time, Marjorie worked as Director of the Fiji Extension Centre, then at the Solomon Islands Extension Service, and finally as Director of the University of the South Pacific Extension Studies (1983–88), with responsibility for delivering extension studies to the university's 12 member countries. Following her retirement from the University of the South Pacific in 1988, Marjorie was appointed Senior Lecturer and Foundation Director at the Centre for Pacific Studies at the
University of Auckland (1990 – 1993). Late into retirement, Crocombe continued to champion poetry and literature, and, as Rachel Reeves noted, remained “outspoken about encouraging Pacific writers to analyse contemporary life through poetry, art and stories.” This bore added fruit in 2003 with the publication of the 400 page
Akono’anga Māori – Cook Islands Culture featuring 25 local authors writing on aspects of Cook Islands culture, economy and society, followed in 2016 by
Art and Architecture of the Cook Islands (co-edited again with Rod Dixon and Linda Crowl). Among her honours, Crocombe was named by
Island Business their 1990 Pacific Islands Woman of the Year, and in 2000 the Cook Islands Business and Professional Women's Association as their Woman of the Year. In the 2009 New Year Honours List, Marjorie was appointed
Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to the Cook Islands, the Pacific, education, literature and the community In 2011, her alma mater
University of the South Pacific honoured her with the award of a Doctor of Letters (
honoris causa) in recognition of “her exceptional academic, literary and community achievements”. The citation included 6 full pages recording all of Marjorie's published works covering subject areas including Pacific History, Pacific Literature, Education, Current Affairs, Information Technology, and Pacific Women as well as 22 edited publications. == Death ==