(1915-1991)
Manning
Clark is one of a group of 20th century historians of Australia from
Melbourne widely known outside the academy. Generations of Australian
History students read R M Crawford’s Ourselves and the Pacific and Keith
Hancock’s Australia and later generations were brought up on The Tyranny
of Distance and The Triumph of the Nomads by Geoffrey Blainey. The presence
of the six volumes of Clark’s A History of Australia and Select Documents
in Australian History in school and public libraries ensures that his
name is familiar to all who have passed through them.
Clark studied History at the University of Melbourne, going on to Balliol
College, Oxford, from 1938 to 1940. After four years teaching at Geelong
Grammar School, he returned to the University to teach Politics. In
1946 he was recruited by R M Crawford to establish the first course
in Australian History. In 1949 he became the first Professor of History
at what was to become the Australian National University. He held this
post until 1975.
A History of Australia has been accused of both sloppiness and bias
but its sonorous tones and epic viewpoint found many admirers. Clark
examined the European importation of Catholicism, Protestantism, the
Enlightenment and their subsequent adaptation in Australia. In 1988,
the book was turned into a musical, perhaps the most original spectacle
of the Bicentennial year. As well as the History, Clark edited two volumes
of Select Documents and wrote three volumes of autobiography as well
as many other works.
Manning Clark married Hilma Dymphna Lodewyckx, daughter of Melbourne
University’s foundation Professor of German, in 1939. They had six children.
As well as assisting her husband, Dymphna Clark (1916-2000) was a considerable
scholar in her own right. She was an accomplished translator of Dutch,
French, German, Latin, Swedish and Russian. She lectured in German at
the ANU and, with H C Coombs and Judith Wright in the 1980s, was one
of the driving forces behind the Aboriginal Treaty Committee. The University
of Melbourne awarded her a posthumous LL D in 2000.
