Manning Clark

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Charles Manning Hope Clark AC (known as Manning Clark; 1915 – May 1991) is one of Australia's best-known historians, recognised for his mammoth six-volume work History of Australia published between 1962 and 1987. He was made a Companion of the Order of Australia, Australia's highest civil honor, in 1975. In 1980 he was made Australian of the Year.

An unashamedly left-wing historian and considered by political conservatives to be a key proponent of the so-called "Black arm band theory of history" [1], Clark left behind one of the most comprehensive and influential bodies of work in the field.

He was born in Melbourne and educated at Melbourne Grammar School, the University of Melbourne and later Balliol College, Oxford University. He taught at Geelong Grammar School before moving to the Australian National University in Canberra for the latter part of his career.

Clark's first publication was Select documents in Australian History, released in two volumes. The first, appearing in 1950, covered the period 1788 to 1850; the second, appearing in 1955, covered 1850 to 1900. He subsequently published Sources of Australian History (1957); Meeting Soviet Man (1960); A Short History of Australia (1963); Disquiet and Other Stories (1969); and In Search of Henry Lawson (1977).

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Dymphna Clark

Clark's wife, Dymphna (1916 – 2000), was an academic linguist, teaching German at the ANU. She also translated and published, in 1994, Baron Charles von Hügel's New Holland Journal, November 1833-October 1834. They had six children.

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