Manning Clark

Clark had numerous credits and honours for his work, perhaps the most noticeable one in Australia obviously was the lecture theatre complex in the national University.
After his wife’s’ death in 2000, their house in Tasmania was made into an educational centre in honour to his work and life. Nowadays it is used to discuss and debate current affairs. All of the community has access, as it is a public institution. There are held a series of yearly conferences, seminars, forums and a yearly lecture dedicated to his work held as well by the most prestigious critics and literate in Australia.

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If we look at the numerous monuments dedicated to this prestigious historical figure we realise how even when Clark was close to his death in 1991 he had acquired enormous recognition for his work and his character. Simply by looking at him it becomes apparent how he knew the relevance of his role: he used to have a long beard, an eccentric hat a long walking stick. His very scenic speeches were known even amongst those who never read his work.

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Clark’s style so far was eclectic but somehow conform with any historiographical book written at the time in terms of type of criticisms. He did not made large use of world wide economic theories and class struggle. He was referred for his work as a generally lefty author, reputation he ended up living with peacefully. All conservatives kept strongly criticising his views on history, often just due to his reputation as a left-wing historian, more that for its real radicalism.

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In 1970s the political environment in Australia was very stimulating, for Clark writing there was a real challenge. He was in contact with Robert Menzies a very liberal Prime Minister considered the representative of the “old” Australia and he went to see Whitlam, seen as the leader of a new progressive Australia. Clark first helped the campaign for Whitlam in the 1972 and then in the later elections of the next two years. He was shocked by his dismissal by the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr some years later. Consequently he wrote an article for Meanjin with a very provoking title “Are we a nation of bastards?” This article was one of the most colourful he wrote and this style was then keep in the latest tome he wrote of the History Of Australia. In the IV tome of the History that came out in 1978 Clark was increasingly pungent and ironic in his remarks on Anglo-Australian conservatism and materialism, and the current government. He became at the centre of the conservatives’ criticism. In spite of the fact that he was a notable Marxist McQueen considered him an upper call historian. In sum Clark was never merging with neither of the political factions.

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During his visit in 1958 to the Soviet Union lasting three weeks visiting the Soviet Writers’ Union he travelled with the Catholic Devaney and Judah Waten a lefty writer. As well as passing through some of the major cities of the Soviet Union Clark went to Prague. While his colleagues were interested in the achievements of the Soviet state, Clark was keener to discover some social and cultural aspects of these territories. He went to the Bolshoi Ballet, the Dostoevsky Museum and the St Sergius Monastery at Zagorsk. His liberal and folkloristic idea of this trip contrasted with the more political approach the other two had. When Clark asked about Boris Pasternak, the dissident Soviet writer who got in trouble for having his novel Doctor Zhivago published in the West, some tension raised. Although the Cold War demolished most of this territory he was impressed with the capability to rebuild a country despite the lack of freedom imposed under Nikita Khrushchev regime.

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The first volume of the History of Australia from the earliest times to the Age of Macquarie published in 1962 and the five following volumes were re-released over the next 3 decades. In his autobiographical memoir “A Historian’s Apprenticeship”, that came out only after he died, Clark underlined that his models were Carlyle, Edward Gibbon and T.B. Macaulay, rather a conservative choice in terms of intellectual “guides”. He was very much influenced by the belief that the story of Australia was comparable to a bible of wisdom, and seen as a book for the success of future generations. He seemed at this time to have neglected all concepts related with progressive thinking including Marxist historiography. He had a very tragic view of Australian history, expanding this concept to history as a whole. He considered fate as the key reason to blame for any human being’s failure. He often claimed that coincidences or adversities should have been identified as part of the existence of individuals; therefore history as a whole became victim of fate.

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While he was graduating he worked as a teacher and as a cricket coach in some schools in the English countryside. He really liked being involved in education and he avoided having to interrupt his academic career as he was diagnosed with epilepsy and he consequently avoided having to join the military service. He did not manage to finish his thesis as he moved back to Australia in 1940 in order to teach at university there. He was not immediately employed therefore he though instead history at Geelong Grammar School. He never left his cricket coaching activities on the side. He was moved to various prestigious institutions such as Rupert Murdoch, Stephen Murray-Smith, etc. His first publication (Meanjin Magazine) followed soon after he wrote an open letter to Tom Collins. He there expressed his views on motherhood (meant primarily as a land). He approached this topic (due to his experiences teaching Australian history and literature) with a hint of national references.

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About his family little is known apart from that he had a difficult relationship with his mother. Firstborn child of Rev Charles Clark, son himself of a carpenter, a simple man and devote Anglican vicar and the Australian Catherine Hope. Her family was involved in properties descending of Rev Samuel Mardsen very much absorbed in the New South of Wales colonial phase.

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