151-426: This is a list of alumni of Fort Street High School , Sydney , New South Wales , Australia who have attained notability in various fields. It includes alumni of the historical Fort Street Boys' High School, Fort Street Girls' High School, Fort Street Superior Public School and Fort Street Model School (or Fort Street National School), from which Fort Street Public School also descends. They are named "Fortians" in
302-618: A Companion of the Order of Australia (AC). The history of public education in Australia began when the Governor of New South Wales Charles FitzRoy established a Board of National Education on 8 January 1848 to implement a national system of education throughout the Colony. The board decided to create two model schools, one for boys and one for girls. The site of Fort Street Model School
453-497: A Liberal member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly , launched an attack on "Communist infiltration" of the university, naming Crawford (a largely apolitical liberal) and Jim Cairns , an economics lecturer and a left-wing Labor Party member. Clark was not named, but when he went on the radio to defend his colleagues, he was attacked as well. Thirty of Clark's students signed a letter affirming that he
604-515: A house system . The school is organised into five official houses, to which each student is assigned. The houses are named after prominent alumni of the school, each representing different areas of endeavour: Joshi, named after Nalini Joshi , the first female professor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Sydney ; Kirby, named after Michael Kirby , former Justice of
755-503: A "Soviet agent of influence". In fact Clark, along with many others, had been given a mass-produced bronze medallion when he had visited Moscow in 1970, to speak at a conference organised to mark the centenary of Lenin's birth. An investigation by the Australian Press Council found the Order of Lenin allegations to be false. The Press Council ruling said: "The newspaper had too little evidence to assert that Prof Clark
906-403: A "manure heap" from which the coming golden age of socialism would arise. He attacked many of the shibboleths of the nationalist school, such as the idealisation of the convicts , bushrangers and pioneers. The rewriting of Australian history, he said, "will not come from the radicals of this generation because they are tethered to an erstwhile great but now excessively rigid creed". There were
1057-673: A Catholic of moderate views. The delegation visited Moscow and Leningrad , and Clark also visited Prague on his way home. While Waten wanted him to admire the achievements of the Soviet state, Clark was more interested in attending the Bolshoi Ballet , the Dostoyevsky Museum and the St Sergius Monastery at Zagorsk . Clark annoyed both Waten and his Soviet hosts by asking questions about Boris Pasternak ,
1208-799: A Sunday at the beginning of June. It features a Talent Quest (previously the Battle of the Bands), a program where individuals and groups compete to win prizes. There are stalls from various student groups, including the Environment Committee, the Student Anti-Racism Network, and Amnesty International. In 2010, other stalls included Nova 96.9 , NSW Police and the NSW Fire Department. Fort Fest has not been run since pre-Covid times. The Environment Committee
1359-470: A celebration of life, a hymn of praise to life. It should come up from inside a man who knows all about that horror of the darkness when a man returns to the dust from whence he came, a man who has looked into the heart of that great darkness, but has both a tenderness for everyone, and yet, paradoxically, a melancholy, a sadness, and a compassion because what matters most in life is never likely to happen". Clark's next work, In Search of Henry Lawson (1979),
1510-484: A communist) and A. J. P. Taylor (a moderate socialist). He won acceptance by excelling at cricket – playing for the Oxford XI and competing alongside Edward Heath and Roy Jenkins . He began a master of arts thesis on Alexis de Tocqueville (he finally submitted it in 1947, and it was published in 2000). Through basically sympathetic towards de Tocqueville's liberalism, Clark wrote that his political vision for
1661-495: A comparative study of the intelligentsia of Germany and France, asking why the former nation gave birth to National Socialism while the latter nation had to be defeated to become Nazi. Clark offered up what would today be called the Sonderweg interpretation, arguing that in the 19th century the majority of French intellectuals had by and large accepted liberalism, rationalism and the values of liberté, égalité, fraternité whereas
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#17327873599711812-435: A deep impression on him. By this time he had lost his Christian faith but was not attracted to any of the secular alternatives on offer. His writings as a student explicitly rejected both socialism and communism. At this point Clark's political views continuously shifted from liberalism to a type of moderate socialism. His favourite writers at this time were Fyodor Dostoyevsky and T. S. Eliot , and his favourite historian
1963-653: A front-page article by the Rupert Murdoch owned Herald Sun , alleging that Clark was a Soviet spy. It published excerpts of Clark's ASIO file and stated that he was friendly with two men who were later confirmed to be Soviet agents. It also claimed that he had been awarded the Order of Lenin for his services. The story was revisited in August 1999 with the allegation in Brisbane 's Courier-Mail , that he had been
2114-494: A gift for teaching. In June 1940 he suddenly decided to return to Australia, abandoning his unfinished thesis, but was unable to get a teaching position at an Australian university due to the wartime decline in enrolments. Instead he taught history at Geelong Grammar School , and also coached the school's First XI – a highly prestigious appointment. Among those he taught were Rupert Murdoch and Stephen Murray-Smith . At Geelong, he published two papers. The first, "The Dilemma of
2265-525: A good deal of empathy of Lawson's losing battle with alcoholism: a fate Clark himself had narrowly avoided by giving up drink in the 1960s. But the book showed both its age and its haste of preparation, and was savaged by Colin Roderick , the leading authority on Lawson, as "a tangled thicket of factual errors, speculation and ideological interpretation". By the time Volume V of the History , which covered
2416-444: A historian declined during the later period of his life, and the final two volumes of the History were given scant attention by other serious historians, regardless of their political views. This was not because they were seen as too "left-wing," but because they were seen as verbose, repetitive and with few new insights to offer. Clark's publisher at MUP, Peter Ryan maintains that leading historians acknowledged to him in private that
2567-511: A just society was flawed by his ignorance of the misery of the masses and by his unwillingness to consider force to ensure justice. At Oxford in the late 1930s he shared the Left's horror of fascism – which he had seen first hand during a visit to Nazi Germany in 1938 – but was not attracted to the communism which was prevalent among undergraduates at the time. His exposure to Nazism and Fascism in 1938 made him more pessimistic and sceptical about
2718-542: A means to fundamentally change society. Clark stated that he did not know what were the new values that Australian society needed, but that historians had the duty to start such a debate. A major problem for Australian historians in the 1940s was that most of the primary sources relating to the colonial period were held in archives in Britain, making research expensive and time-consuming. Starting in 1946, Clark together with L.J. Pryor collected documentary material relating to
2869-477: A nation of bastards?". These views increasingly coloured his writing, and were notable in the last three volumes of the History . Volume IV of the History , launched in 1978, was notably strident in its attacks on Anglo-Australian conservatism, materialism, philistinism and "groveldom". It attracted the now familiar range of critical comment: criticism from conservatives, praise from the left (although Marxists like Connell and McQueen continued to complain that Clark
3020-521: A national disgrace. Clark argued it was time for Australian intellectuals to stop treating Great Britain as the model of excellence to which Australians should strive to meet, writing that Australia should be treated as an entity in its own right. However, Clark himself was critical of "dinkum" Australians, albeit from another direction as he maintained that values such as mateship were mere "comforters" that helped to make life in colonial Australia with its harsh environment more bearable, and failed to provide
3171-406: A national institution, as much for his public persona as for his historical work. His goatee beard, his bush hat, his stout walking stick and his enigmatic public utterances had become widely known even among people who had never opened any of his books. It was this which inspired the 1988 project of turning the History into a musical, Manning Clark's History of Australia – The Musical , funded by
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#17327873599713322-573: A number of similar comments in his annotation of the Select Documents . The diggers of Eureka , for example, were not revolutionaries, but aspiring capitalists; the dominant creed of the 1890s was not socialism, but fear of Asian immigration. Although these views were seen as conservative at the time, they were later taken up with greater force by the Marxist historian Humphrey McQueen in his 1970 book A New Britannia . The orthodox left
3473-433: A party, he was intensely political, embodying the conflicting loyalties of inter-war Australia... He disturbed conservative and conventional opinion without himself becoming an unswerving left-wing believer". Peter Craven disagreed: "I'm not sure that he [Holt] is right that Clark was an intensely political figure. He seems in some respects to have been more of a political agnostic whose personal mythology became conflated with
3624-457: A range of cultural backgrounds. Students past and present are referred to as "Fortians". Ronald Horan was for many years a master at the school. As well as writing foreign language textbooks, he was the author of a history of the school, Fort Street, the School which was later followed by Maroon and Silver . The school has also undergone a variety of renovations, elevating the facilities of
3775-542: A religious organisation. Today, it remains a public school operated by the New South Wales Department of Education . As an academically selective secondary school, it draws students from across greater metropolitan Sydney . To avoid confusion arising from the school's history of separation, amalgamation and relocation, the present school is designated Fort Street High School, Petersham for official government purposes. The school's Latin motto
3926-508: A requirement for videos to not include swearing and nudity (a FLOP 2002 video involved a full length nudity scene). In 2010, FLOP was officially 'cancelled', however, in line with Fort Street students' long history of being a prominent source of progressive activism in Australia, the decision was fiercely contested by student-led protest groups and FLOP continued in its rebellious nature, including during 2021, when due to COVID-19, students were absent from school for most of their final term – when
4077-478: A result was attacked as communist fellow-travellers in the House of Representatives by the outspoken right-wing parliamentarian Bill Wentworth . As a result, he was placed under surveillance by Australia's domestic intelligence organisation, ASIO , who over the years compiled a large file of trivia and gossip about him, without ever discovering anything in his activities that posed a risk to "national security". In
4228-459: A review in the magazine Dissent in 1968: "The astonishing savaging of volume one of A History of Australia , when it appeared in 1962, seems almost symbolic. What is important is that such pettiness did not harm such as Gibbon and Taine. Manning Clark will not go into the dustbin of history because of Ellis' quibbling about the precise time this or that event happened. Nor will McManners's more gentle questioning about whether he had really understood
4379-459: A school day. The worker had been restoring the facade of the 170-year-old public school when he was crushed by a sandstone concrete slab weighing several tonnes. The school underwent lockdown procedures before sending students home. Fort Street High School is located on a single campus adjacent to Parramatta Road in Petersham , a suburb in the inner-west of Sydney. The school occupies almost
4530-703: A system of government. He visited the Soviet Union again in 1970 and in 1973, and he again expressed his admiration for Lenin as a historical figure. But in 1971 he took part in a demonstration outside the Soviet Embassy in Canberra against the Soviet persecution of the author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn , and in 1985 he again took part in an anti-Soviet demonstration, this time in support of the Polish trade union Solidarity . In 1978 he told an interviewer that he
4681-642: A team to participate in the annual Seven Bridges Walk, raising over $ 21,100. They have since established this as an annual tradition, where over $ 88,351 has been raised by the Year 8 Charity Committees from 2015-2019 inclusive. It is also a tradition for the Year 12 Charity Committee to run the World's Greatest Shave , an annual fundraiser run by the Leukaemia Foundation which raises awareness and funds for blood cancer research and treatment. FSHS Robotics
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4832-400: A terrible book, but you can't expect me to say that in print ". Clark's tendency to focus on individuals and their tragic flaws, while a serviceable approach when writing about the early days of colonial New South Wales, a small and isolated society dominated by such colourful characters as MacArthur and Wentworth, had much less validity when he was writing about the more complex Australia of
4983-637: A weekly inter school teams competition between secondary schools, both independent and government-funded , offered by the NSW Junior Chess League. The Fort Street High School Maker Society is a co-curricular group where students can complete a variety of STEM activities. Students choose one or more STEM-related activities such as the Aeronautical Velocity, STEM Video Game or Formula 1 in Schools challenges and work on
5134-532: A work of literature: an epic rather than a history. Clark's colorful writing style with its allusions to the Bible, apocalyptic imagery, and a focus on the psychological struggles within individuals was often criticised by historians, but made him popular with the public. Clark argued that the defining struggle between Protestantism, Catholicism and the Enlightenment world views ultimately ended not with
5285-588: Is Come Let the Strains resound that Echo Fort Street's Glory and Gaudeamus igitur are sung at the beginning of assemblies, with Fort Street's Name Rings Around the World sung as the recessional , at its conclusion. FLOP (Fortians' Last Outstanding Performance), an annual student revue performed by outgoing Year 12 students, has been performed for many years, beginning in 1976. It usually involves humorous sketches, often parodying school life and teachers, and, in
5436-476: Is Faber est suae quisque fortunae , translated as "Each person is the maker of their own fortune", a phrase attributed to the ancient Roman Appius Claudius Caecus . Fort Street High School has a sister school, Suginami Sogo High School, in Tokyo , Japan. In 2010, The Age reported that Fort Street High School ranked equal fourth among Australian schools, based on the number of alumni who had been honoured as
5587-549: Is a student body that was formed in late 2007 by Paul Pagani, a teacher at the school. The Committee currently has over 40 members ranging from Years 7 to 12, and is led by a President. The Environment Committee works in partnership with other schools in the local area, such as Petersham Public School and Newtown High School of the Performing Arts . In a nod towards the school's heritage, the Committee worked closely with
5738-627: Is a student-run robotics club with the aim of providing students passionate in STEM with a holistic experience of engineering from conception to production in preparation for the RoboCup Junior Australia (RCJA) competition. Fort Street High School offers chess as an extracurricular activity after school. Fort Street High School participates in the Metropolitan Secondary Schools Competition,
5889-591: Is clear that from the mid-1960s onwards he identified the Australian Labor Party as the party of progress and Australian independence, and particularly admired Gough Whitlam (who became Leader of the ALP Opposition in 1967 and Prime Minister five years later) as the leader Australia had been looking for ever since the death of John Curtin in 1945. Stephen Holt wrote in his study A Short History of Manning Clark : "Though never belonging to
6040-461: Is elected by a combination of weighted votes from the school's staff and members of the elected SRC. The SRC is responsible for the annual Valentine's Day Rose Drive, among other events and fundraising efforts throughout the year. The SRC also run, in collaboration with the P&;C, the biennial Fort Street Festival (Fort Fest), which allows students to open a stall at the school on the day, usually
6191-561: Is the largest co-curricular program in the school involving over 300 students. In 2002, it won the Director-General 's School Achievement Award for providing opportunities for students to enrich and expand their expertise as musicians and performers . The large ensembles include the Wind Ensemble , Wind Orchestra, Concert Band , Training Band, Symphony Orchestra , Philharmonic Orchestra and Vocal Ensemble . In addition,
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6342-492: The Australian National University (ANU). He lived in Canberra, then still a "bush capital" in a rural setting, for the rest of his life. From 1949 to 1972 Clark was professor of history, first at CUC and then at ANU. In 1972 he was appointed to the new post of professor of Australian history, which he held until his retirement in 1974. He then held the title emeritus professor until his death. During
6493-701: The Fortian magazine, the school's annual review and yearbook . The name later came to refer to all students of the schools past and present. An extensive alumni network is maintained through the school's alumni association , the Fortians' Union, formed by the amalgamation of the Old Boys' Union and the Fort Street Old Girls' Union. In addition to maintaining the alumni network, the Union also assists
6644-515: The High Court of Australia ; Mawson, named after Douglas Mawson , Antarctic explorer; Preston, named after artist Margaret Preston ; and Sheikh, named after Simon Sheikh , Australian activist and CEO of superannuation fund Future Super . Houses compete in sporting and academic endeavours for the Kennedy Cup , named after athlete Clarice Kennedy . Since 1899, the school has published
6795-755: The Higher School Certificate (HSC), which certifies the completion of high school in New South Wales. In order to satisfy requirements for the HSC, each student must complete at least twelve units of study for the Preliminary course (in year 11) and at least ten units for the HSC (in Year 12). The only compulsory subject is English. Students have the option of undertaking Vocational education (VET) courses, which may or may not contribute to their Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) in
6946-542: The Student Representative Council (SRC). Four male and four female students from each year are elected by their peers at the end of the third term of each year, excepting Year 7 Representatives, who are voted in the beginning of the year. The executive team is elected from Year 10 members of the SRC at the beginning of Term 4. It consists of a president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer, and
7097-424: The University of New South Wales and other universities. Among its graduates are also well known celebrities. In 2010, The Age reported that Fort Street High School ranked equal fourth among Australian schools based on the number of alumni who had received a top Order of Australia honour. The Foundation was established by some Fortians of the class of 1949. The Foundation provides a means of raising funds for
7248-532: The "Old Left" historians, he shared much of their contempt for the old Anglo-Australian upper class, whose stronghold was the "Melbourne establishment" where Clark was raised and educated. His earlier preoccupation with the clash of European belief systems imported into Australia in the 18th century faded, and was replaced by a focus on what Clark saw as the conflict between "those who stood for 'King and Empire' and those who stood for 'the Australian way of life and
7399-572: The "flogging parson" of early colonial New South Wales . Clark had a difficult relationship with his mother, who never forgot her superior social origins, and came to identify her with the Protestant middle class he so vigorously attacked in his later work. Charles held various curacies in Sydney including St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney , and St John's, Ashfield , where Catherine was a Sunday School teacher. The family moved to Melbourne when Clark
7550-591: The "greyness" of everyday life and the suppression of religion, he praised the Soviet state's ability to provide for the material needs of the people. His comment that Vladimir Lenin stood on a par with Jesus as one of the great men of all time was later often quoted against him. At the time, however, the book was not universally seen as pro-Soviet. Writing in Tribune , Waten denounced it as misleading and "littered with half-truths and anti-Soviet clichés". Clark's son recalls: Nevertheless, Meeting Soviet Man marked
7701-474: The 18th and 19th centuries, marking the genesis of the book series that became The History of Australia . On his return to Australia, Clark began to write The History of Australia , which was originally envisioned as a two-volume work, with the first volume extending to the 1860s and the second volume ending in 1939. As Clark began to write, however, the work expanded dramatically, both in size and conception. The first volume of History , subtitled "from
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#17327873599717852-499: The 1950s Clark pursued a conventional academic career while teaching history in Canberra. In 1950 he published the first of two volumes of Select Documents in Australian History (Vol. 1, 1788–1850; Vol. 2, 1851–1900, appeared in 1955). These volumes made an important contribution to the teaching of Australian history in schools and universities by placing a wide selection of primary sources, many never before published, in
8003-421: The 19th-century Australian writer " Tom Collins ", on the subject of mateship , which appeared in the literary magazine Meanjin . In 1944 Clark returned to Melbourne University to finish his master's thesis, an essential requirement if he was to gain a university post. He supported himself by tutoring politics , and later in the year he was finally appointed to a lectureship in politics. The acting head of
8154-547: The 4 options to learn for the whole year. They may choose from French, German, Chinese and Japanese. In years 9 and 10, students choose three elective subjects, from amongst Languages (French, German, Chinese, or Japanese), Elective History, Elective Geography (so-called to differentiate them from the compulsory History and Geography course), Creative and Performing Arts (Music, Drama and Visual Arts), Industrial Technologies ( ICT , Engineering, and Food Technology), and Commerce. In Stage 6, or years 11 and 12, students prepare for
8305-712: The Australian Bicentenary and with a script by Don Watson , historian and later speechwriter to Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating . The show was a flop, but did not detract from Clark's public standing. The musical solidified Clark's reputation as a "shameless lover" of Australia as his stage version sang "For me Australia and no other/Mistress, harlot, goddess, mother/Whose first great native son I am". His last works were two volumes of autobiography, The Puzzles of Childhood (Viking 1989) and The Quest for Grace (Viking 1990). A third, unfinished volume, A Historian's Apprenticeship (Melbourne University Press 1992),
8456-791: The Australian Literature Society's gold medal in 1970, The Age Book Prize in 1974 and the New South Wales Premier's Literary Award in 1979. He was awarded honorary doctorates by the Universities of Melbourne , Newcastle and Sydney . In 1980 he was named Australian of the Year . After Dymphna Clark's death in 2000, the Clark's home in Tasmania Circle, Forrest , designed by Robin Boyd ,
8607-607: The Australian dream,' between 'the Old Dead Tree and the Young Tree Green'". While this was a focus more relevant to the history of Australia in the late 19th and 20th centuries, it was also a much more politically contentious one, and Clark's undisguised contempt for the "Old Dead Tree" of the Anglo-Australian middle class fuelled the view that he was now writing polemic rather than history. Writing in
8758-636: The Boys' school was moved to the school's present site, on Taverner's Hill, Petersham. The Girls' school remained at Observatory Hill until 1975, when the two schools were amalgamated to form the current co-educational school at Petersham. During that time, its grounds continued to be consumed by the growing city; for example, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which opened in 1932, took most of the playground. Fort Street Public School remains at Observatory Hill. For many years from 1912 George Mackaness
8909-645: The Fort Street Model School was substantial, forming the basis for education throughout the colonies: At the same time at the Fort Street National School in Sydney William Wilkins was teaching pupil-teachers how to lead the children of New South Wales out of darkness into the light. He was holding out to them that bright prospect of the day when every locality however remote and every family however humble
9060-704: The French Intelligentsia", concerned why French Catholic intellectuals such as Charles Maurras had supported the Vichy regime. Clark argued that Maurras and other French Catholic intellectuals had been reluctant collaborators, driven to support Vichy out of a dissatisfaction with bourgeois conservatism in France and a fear of the masses propelled by memories of the French Revolution. In his second paper entitled "France and Germany", Clark offered up
9211-890: The HSC. Fort Street High also offers sports as part of its formal and co-curricular programs. Year 7 to 10 students experience sports through the Physical Education program, and Years 8 to 11 have the option to participate in zone and knockout sports. Year 12 students are not required to undertake sport but may partake if requested. Students who are not involved in competition undertake in Year 8 skill-based sport, and in Years 9 to 11 recreational sports. Sports offered include Ultimate Frisbee , hockey , rugby union , aerobics , basketball, ice skating , netball , K-pop dancing , pilates, soccer, water polo , cricket , tennis, baseball, volleyball, recreational gym, Oz-tag, rock climbing and touch football . The Instrumental Music Program
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#17327873599719362-614: The History Department, as a permanent lecturer in Australian History. With the encouragement of Max Crawford (head of the History Department from 1937 to 1970), he taught the university's first full-year course in Australian history. Among his students were Frank Crean (later Deputy Prime Minister), Geoffrey Blainey , Bruce Grant , Geoffrey Serle , Ken Inglis and Ian Turner (the latter five all future historians of note), Helen Hughes , and Peter Ryan , later Clark's publisher. During this time he began thoroughly researching
9513-519: The Observatory Hill Environmental Educational Centre, including the planning of EcoTour 2010. The Committee's past and present projects include running a Recycling Program run with the assistance of Visy , installing two water tanks (each having a 2000L capacity), installing 6 1.5 kW Solar Panels, regenerating plants with indigenous natives along Andreas Street, controlling a worm farm and running
9664-425: The Politics Department at this time was Ian Milner , who soon left to become an Australian diplomat . Years later it was revealed that Milner had been a secret communist and Soviet agent . Clark's brief friendship with Milner at this time has been seized on as evidence of Clark's supposed communist sympathies, but it is unlikely that Clark knew anything about Milner's covert activities. In late 1945 he transferred to
9815-410: The President of the United Nations General Assembly ( Herbert Evatt ) and the President of the International Court of Justice ( Percy Spender ) (in each case, the only Australians to date to hold such positions), justices of the Supreme Court of New South Wales , Federal Court of Australia and other state and federal courts, Premiers of New South Wales , and Chancellors of the University of Sydney,
9966-418: The Press Council believes it should have retracted the allegations about which Prof Clark's supporters complained". Further criticism of Clark's reliability arose in March 2007 with the discovery that Clark's account, given in his memoirs and elsewhere, of walking the streets of Bonn the day after Kristallnacht was untrue. By examining Clark's letters and diary, the writer Mark McKenna established that it
10117-450: The Wilkins and Kilgour blocks. The school's original Observatory Hill campus is now used by the National Trust of Australia . Fort Street High School teaches all six grades of a standard secondary education in New South Wales, from year 7 to 12. It operates under the New South Wales Department of Education and Training (DET) and is registered and accredited with the New South Wales Education Standards Authority , and therefore following
10268-404: The activity during Maker Society sessions, all under the supervision and guidance of the TAS (Technology and Applied studies) teachers. It provides a social hub to inspire students to start their own projects, as well as a makerspace which contains facilities such as a laser cutter , multiple 3D printers , a CNC machine and various electronic test equipment . The student body is represented by
10419-425: The annual Earth Hour. The Environmental Committee introduced the Composting program in 2022, run on a fortnightly roster with student volunteers. For more than 20 years, Fort Street High School has supported a student led and mentored, voluntary Christian program called STIVE. The Fort Street High School Walking Club is a group where students participate in a range of high intensity exercises. Students exercise on
10570-558: The archives in Melbourne and Sydney for the documentary evidence on Australia's early history. He also developed a reputation as a heavy drinker, and was a well-known figure in the pubs of nearby Carlton . (In the 1960s he gave up drink and was a total abstainer for the rest of his life.) Clark later stated that it was reading the novelists, poets and playwrights during this period such as Joseph Furphy , James McAuley , Douglas Stewart , Henry Lawson , and D.H. Lawrence that led to his "discovery of Australia" as he became convinced that
10721-430: The beginning of Clark's reputation as a left-winger, something of which his work to that point had given no indication. James McAuley, hitherto a close friend, called the book "shoddy," and Donald Horne , then a conservative and editor of The Bulletin , called it "superficial" and showing "too much sentimental goodwill" towards the Soviet Union. It remains unclear what Clark's political views actually were, although it
10872-442: The charge that Clark was a communist, a communist sympathiser or, at best, hopelessly naive about communism. In it he gave ammunition to his enemies by denying that millions of people had died during Joseph Stalin 's collectivisation of agriculture. On the other hand, he was scathing about the cultural dreariness of the Soviet Union and about the greed and philistinism of the Soviet bureaucracy. Although he criticised Soviet society for
11023-496: The culture of indigenous Australians , though this changed in his later life. He saw Catholicism, Protestantism and the Enlightenment as the three great contending influences in Australian history. He was chiefly interested in colourful, emblematic individuals and the struggles they underwent to maintain their beliefs in Australia; men like William Bligh , William Wentworth , John MacArthur and Daniel Deniehy . His view
11174-554: The daughter of a Flemish intellectual and a formidable scholar in her own right, with whom he had six children. When World War II broke out in September 1939, Clark was exempted from military service on the grounds of his mild epilepsy . He supported himself while finishing his thesis by teaching history and coaching cricket teams at Blundell's School , a public school at Tiverton in Devonshire , England. Here he discovered
11325-546: The depiction of individual character, and were not troubled by the comments of academic critics on his factual inaccuracies or their doubts about his historiographic theories. The books sold extremely well and were a major earner for Melbourne University Press (MUP) and its director, Peter Ryan. Even critics who found fault with the History as history admired it as literature. In The Age , Stuart Sayers hailed it as "a major work, not only of scholarship... but also of Australian literature". Some reviewers complained that Clark
11476-419: The digital era, the primary medium has been video. These are usually filmed in and out of class time after students' HSC Trial exams, taking place in early Term 3. These are shown during the graduation assembly - also known as FLOP. Musical pieces, both serious and funny, were once often performed. In its more recent years, various restrictions were imposed on FLOP, including a ban on the use of cars in videos, and
11627-656: The discovery of Australia by the Dutch in the 17th century, and also the possible discovery of Australia by the Chinese or the Portuguese. He then visited London, Oxford and the Netherlands , where he combed through the archives for more documents relating to the Dutch explorers and the founding of New South Wales in 1788 – Dymphna Clark did most of the research work in the Dutch archives. An immediate result of this research
11778-590: The dissident Soviet writer who was in trouble for having his novel Doctor Zhivago published in the West. Nevertheless, he was impressed by the material progress of the country after the devastation of World War II and by the limited political liberalisation which was taking place under Nikita Khrushchev . On his return he wrote a series of articles for the liberal news-magazine Nation , which were later published in booklet form as Meeting Soviet Man (Angus and Robertson 1960). This work later became "exhibit A" for
11929-475: The dreary mechanisms of celebrity in this country so that both sides were ready to plague him". Whatever his real views, Clark enjoyed praise and celebrity, and since he was now getting it mainly from the left he tended to play to the gallery in his public statements. "He was more popular and newsworthy, 'the best guru in the business,' as Geoff Serle put it in 1974". There is, however, no evidence that Clark had any real sympathy with Communism as an ideology or as
12080-428: The dustbin of human history. Now is the time for the life-affirmers and the enlargers to show whether they have anything to say, whether they have any food for the great hungers of humanity". His inattention to factual detail became notorious, and was noted even in the first volume, which drew a critical review from Malcolm Ellis titled "History without facts". Ellis, who had a history of personal hostility with Clark,
12231-473: The earliest times to the Age of Macquarie " appeared in 1962, and five more volumes, taking the story down to 1935, appeared over the next 26 years. In his autobiographical memoir A Historian's Apprenticeship published after his death, Clark recalled that his models were Carlyle, Edward Gibbon and T. B. Macaulay – two conservatives and a Whig – and that he was inspired by the belief that "the story of Australia
12382-506: The eighteenth century". In response, Clark stated that when he began the History , he was writing with a "British clock" in his mind, saying: "Now I want to go on to persuade Australians to build their own clock. That, I think, must start forty or fifty thousand years ago with the migration of the Aborigines to Australia...I told only a part of what is possibly the greatest human tragedy in the history of Australia-the confrontation between
12533-536: The emerging first generation of native-born white Australians, many of them the children of convicts. It prompted Russel Ward to praise Clark as "the greatest historian, living or dead, of Australia". Even Leonie Kramer , doyenne of conservative intellectuals and closely associated with the Quadrant group, named Volume II as her "book of the year". The appearance of Volume III in 1973 aroused little controversy – commentators of all political views apparently felt there
12684-625: The entire street block , and is surrounded by Parramatta Road, Palace Street and Andreas Street with access from Fort Street. The Petersham campus centres on the Romanesque Revival main building (formerly known to most staff and students simply as "the old block") now named the Wilkins Building after William Wilkins , who played an instrumental role in the formation of the education system in New South Wales in
12835-518: The extension ensembles include the Jazz Orchestra, Big Band, Jazz Ensemble , Percussion Ensembles , and Chamber Choir. Each year group has a charity committee, focusing on different issues and charities throughout the year. They often hold highly successful fundraising stalls, such as cake stalls, student hairspray salons, live entertainment, raffles and gold-coin donation drives. In 2015, the Year 8 Charity Committee (class of 2019) established
12986-455: The filming takes place. Fort Street alumni, as well as current attendees, are traditionally called "Fortians". Prominent former students include Australia's first Prime Minister, Edmund Barton , a Governor-General of Australia , and five justices of the High Court of Australia (including Michael Kirby ), the highest number among government schools in Australia and the second highest among all schools in Australia. Fortians have also served as
13137-522: The founding of the colony of New South Wales in 1788, the transportation of convicts to the penal colony and the squatter living illegally in the bush with the aim of publishing them to make them more accessible to historians. In 1948 Clark was promoted to Senior Lecturer, and was well set for a lifelong career at Melbourne University. But as the Cold War set in he began to find the intellectual climate of Melbourne uncomfortable. In 1947 F.L. Edmunds,
13288-469: The hands of students. The publication of the first volume of Select Documents in 1950 attracted much media attention at the time, being hailed as the beginning of a new period of Australian historiography. The documents were accompanied by extensive annotation and commentaries by Clark, and his critics now regard this as his best work, before the onset of what they see as his later decline. At this stage of his career Clark published as C. M. H. Clark, but he
13439-512: The heated political atmosphere of Australia in the 1970s, Clark came to see Robert Menzies (Liberal Prime Minister 1949–1966) as the representative of the "old" Australia, and to see Whitlam as the hero of a new progressive Australia. Clark campaigned for Whitlam in the 1972 and 1974 elections, and was outraged by his dismissal by the Governor-General , Sir John Kerr , in 1975, after which he wrote an article for Meanjin called "Are we
13590-550: The later 19th and 20th centuries. His lack of interest in economic and social history became less forgivable, particularly among the younger generation of historians, regardless of their politics. The Marxist Raewyn Connell wrote that Clark had no understanding of the historical process, assuming that things happened by chance or "by an odd irony". Bill Cope , writing in Labour History , the house-journal of left-wing historians, wrote that Clark had been "left behind, both by
13741-429: The later volumes of the History were inferior work, but would not say so publicly out of respect for Clark, or out of a reluctance to give ammunition to the political attacks on him. "By the time Volume V was published in 1981, this approached the proportions of a professional scandal. Quadrant , for example, asked five of Australia's leading historians to review it, and received five more of less identical replies: 'It's
13892-622: The latter half of the nineteenth century. The other buildings include the Kilgour building, the Memorial Hall and the newest additions, the Cohen and Rowe buildings, which were completed in 2004. School facilities include a library, a gymnasium, an oval , futsal courts, basketball courts , volleyball courts, cricket practice nets , a canteen , a STEM makerspace and a performing arts block. After years of campaigning for insulation,
14043-475: The majority of German intellectuals by contrast had embraced conservatism, emotionalism, and a vision of a hierarchical society ruled by an autocratic elite. Clark noted that at the beginning of the 20th century, the most famous French intellectual was the writer Émile Zola who had been a leading Dreyfusard in the Dreyfus affair as he maintained justice must apply to all French people. By contrast, Clark noted that
14194-905: The mandated curriculum for all years. Administratively, the six grades are divided into three "Stages" of two years each: Stage 4 (years 7 and 8), Stage 5 (years 9 and 10) and Stage 6 (years 11 and 12). Years 7 to 10 are traditionally regarded as "junior" high school, and until its discontinuation in 2011, officially concluded with attainment of the School Certificate at the end of year 10. Compulsory subjects during these years are English , Mathematics , Science, History, Geography and Physical Education . In addition, Visual Arts , Drama, and Design & Technology are compulsory in year 7. The same subjects are compulsory for year 8, however without Drama. Students also learn two different languages in year 7, they are not able to choose which ones. In year 8 they are allowed to choose one language out of
14345-488: The many contradictions we must accept as soon as we can as part of the human condition". The dominant theme of the early volumes of Clark's history was the interplay between the harsh environment of the Australian continent and the European values of the people who discovered, explored and settled it in the 18th and 19th centuries. In common with most Australians of his generation, he had little knowledge of, or interest in,
14496-494: The merit of the work. Clark's purported defection to the left in the 1970s caused fury on the literary and intellectual right, particularly since he was accompanied by several other leading figures including Donald Horne and the novelist Patrick White , whose career has some parallels with Clark's. He was denounced in Quadrant and in the columns of the Murdoch press as the godfather of the " Black armband view of history ". He
14647-646: The mid-1950s Clark conceived a new project: a large multi-volume history of Australia, based on the documentary sources but giving expression to Clark's own ideas about the meaning of Australian history. In late 1955, he received a research grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to study the first visits by Europeans to Australia in the 17th century. He took leave from Canberra in 1956 and visited Jakarta , Burma and various cities in India, fossicking in museums and archives for documents and maps relating to
14798-615: The most famous German intellectual in some time period was the English-born Houston Stewart Chamberlain , the "Evangelist of Race", whose theories divided the world into a racial hierarchy with the Germanic Aryan race as the herrenvolk ("master race"). While at Geelong he began systematically to read Australian history, literature and criticism for the first time. The result was his first publication on an Australian theme, an open letter to
14949-591: The nature of the Enlightenment correctly really be important. Great history is not determined by the precision of the facts it contains. What will decide this is the meaningfulness of the vision of Man which it has". In 1958, Clark visited the Soviet Union for three weeks as a guest of the Soviet Union of Writers , accompanied by the Communist writer Judah Waten and the Queensland poet James Devaney ,
15100-411: The neverending conversation of humanity on the meaning of life and the means of wisdom and understanding. So far no one has described the phoenix that will arise from the ashes of an age of ruins. No one has risked prophesying whether an age of ruins will be the prelude to the coming of the barbarians or to taking a seat at the great banquet of life. The life-deniers and the straiteners have been swept into
15251-492: The new social movements of the postwar decades and the new histories which have transformed the way we see our past and ourselves". John Hirst , usually regarded as a moderately conservative historian, wrote: "In the end Clark became the sort of historian he had set out to supersede – a barracker for the 'progressive' side who accepted uncritically its view of the world". By the time Clark died in May 1991, he had become something of
15402-496: The oval on Tuesday lunches, providing an outlet for community fitness and welfare. Other extracurricular activities include debating (the Year 7 and 8 team was the state champion in 2010 ), public speaking, mock trial (Fort Street was the 2009 New South Wales Champions), mooting (Fort Street was the winning team of the 2021 University of Western Sydney Kirby Cup ), Tournament of Minds , Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme, theatresports , photography, and dance. Fort Street utilises
15553-540: The present school. The school was officially established on 1 September 1849, when the conversion of the building was approved by the government. This original school building is visible today beside the southern approaches to the Sydney Harbour Bridge . The establishment of Fort Street School marked the establishment of a non-denominational system of school, where the government undertook the education of its people, separate from religion. The influence of
15704-467: The previous year's graduating class. In the past, Speech Day events have been held at various venues, including the school's Memorial Hall and the Sydney Opera House . In recent years, the ceremony has been held at Sydney Town Hall . Throughout its history, the various Fort Street schools have had a number of school songs . At present, at assemblies , the simply-named School Song which
15855-415: The prosperity of bourgeois Australia. The real hero of Volume V was Alfred Deakin , leader of enlightened middle-class liberalism, and (like Clark) a product of Melbourne Grammar and Melbourne University. In his last years, Clark responded to criticism about his treatment of the Aborigines with many lambasting him for his 1962 statement that "civilisation did not begin in Australia until the last quarter of
16006-465: The same gospel of humanity marching forward, reaching upward for the light. – Manning Clark , A History of Australia, Vol. 4, The Earth Abideth Forever 1851–1888 In 1881, the school was raised to the status of Superior Public School. In 1911, the school was split into one primary and two secondary schools: Fort Street Public School , Fort Street Boys' High School and Fort Street Girls' High School. Due to space limitations at Observatory Hill, in 1916,
16157-420: The school and promotes its traditions. It holds an annual dinner each October, with some student reunions held concurrently with this event. The Fortians' Union publishes Faber Est , a monthly newsletter . An annual Speech Day is held near the beginning of each year at which student achievements are recognised and awards are presented. An address is given by a prominent Fortian, principal and valedictorian of
16308-556: The school received funding for noise reduction technology, as it is located beneath an air corridor. Work on in the school was scheduled to start in mid-2010 and began in the Memorial Hall at the request of the school principal, Roslynne Moxham, to provide a quiet environment for exams being held in the hall including the Higher School Certificate. It was completed in January 2012, with the completion of insulation in
16459-581: The school via a separate, incorporated entity. The Foundation administers three trust funds: Library and Building (tax deductible) and the Education Fund. Manning Clark Charles Manning Hope Clark , AC FAHA (3 March 1915 – 23 May 1991) was an Australian historian and the author of the best-known general history of Australia, his six-volume A History of Australia , published between 1962 and 1987. He has been described as "Australia's most famous historian", but his work has also been
16610-483: The school. The school was closed on 30 July 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic after the school was advised of a possible case. The school was reopened the next day after a negative result was returned. Tragically, on August 5 2022, a stonemason working at the school died in an accident. The man was found trapped under stones after scaffolding at the building site at Fort Street High School at around 11:30 am, during
16761-420: The secondary literature. In contrast, many historians, including Max Crawford, Bede Nairn , Kathleen Fitzpatrick and Allan W. Martin the official biographer of Robert Menzies , praised the book. The History thus met a mixed critical response – "praise, misgivings and puzzlement in varying proportions" – but a generally positive public one. Most readers warmed to Clark's great gift for narrative prose and
16912-548: The state of European civilisation. However, he was not attracted to the Left's emancipatory process of socialist revolution and favoured, instead, a capitalist , social democratic and democratic socialist approach. At Oxford also he suffered the social snubs commonly experienced by "colonials" at that time, which was apparently the source of his lifelong dislike of the English . In 1939 in Oxford he married Dymphna Lodewyckx ,
17063-468: The story of Australia had not been properly told by historians, and the Australians had a past to be proud of. Clark was also disappointed by the treatment afforded by historians of "dinkum" Australians (i.e. ordinary Australians, so-called because they spoke the "dinkum" variety of English) with their values of mateship, egalitarianism and anti-elitism with the "dinkum" people being portrayed as almost
17214-454: The story was taken only down to 1935, when both John Curtin and Robert Menzies emerged as national leaders, allowing Clark to draw a sharp contrast between these two, portraying Menzies as the representative of the old Anglo-Australian "grovellers" and Curtin as the leader of the new Australian nationalism. The book was launched in July 1987. By the 1970s, Clark, while still writing history which
17365-628: The target of criticism, particularly from conservatives and classical liberals . Clark was born in Sydney on 3 March 1915, the son of the Reverend Charles Clark, an English-born Anglican priest from a working-class background (he was the son of a London carpenter), and Catherine Hope, who came from an old Australian establishment family. On his mother's side he was a descendant of the Reverend Samuel Marsden ,
17516-414: The traditions of these schools. Fort Street High School Fort Street High School ( FSHS ) is a government-funded co-educational academically selective secondary day school , located in Petersham , an inner western suburb of Sydney , New South Wales , Australia. Established in 1849, it is the oldest government high school in Australia and, notably, the first school not founded by
17667-443: The triumph of the "lucky country", but rather a spiritual decline into a "kingdom of nothingness" and an "age of ruins", as Australians became in Clark's view a nation of materialistic petty, petit-bourgeois property owners. Despite his pessimistic conclusions, Clark wrote he still had hope for Australia's future, writing: "Australians have liberated themselves from the fate of being second-rate Europeans and have begun to contribute to
17818-464: The white man and the Aborigine". In 1983, Clark was hospitalised for the first time and underwent bypass surgery, and further surgery was needed in 1984. Always a pessimist, Clark became convinced that his time was running out, and from this point he lost interest in the outside world and its concerns and concentrated solely on finishing the History before his death. His work on Volume VI, to cover
17969-438: The working people for their contributions to Australia's traditions," he wrote. In 1962 Clark contributed an essay to Peter Coleman 's book Australian Civilisation , in which he argued that much of Australian history could be seen as a three-sided struggle between Catholicism , Protestantism and secularism , a theme which he continued to develop in his later work. In his introduction Coleman wrote: At this time also Clark
18120-520: The years between 1881 and 1915, appeared in 1981, Clark had increasingly withdrawn from political controversy. The retirement of Whitlam after his defeats at the 1975 and 1977 elections removed the main focus of Clark's political loyalty – he was not very impressed with Whitlam's pragmatic successor, Bill Hayden , and even less impressed with Hayden's chief rival, Bob Hawke , whom Clark had known since his student days at ANU and regarded as lacking in principle. In addition, Clark, although only in his mid 60s,
18271-555: The years between the two world wars, led him to compare Hawke, who became Prime Minister in March 1983, with James Scullin , the hapless Labor Prime Minister of the Depression years who failed to take any radical steps and saw his government destroyed. Clark's health improved in 1985 and he was able to travel to China and to the Australian war cemeteries in France. A final burst of energy enabled him to finish Volume VI in 1986, although
18422-464: Was Sources of Australian History (Oxford University Press 1957). During his time in London, the nature of the project radically changed as he recalled: "It was going to be very academic, very careful, very much a 'Yes' and 'No' performance, with genuflexions in the direction of Mr. 'Dry-as-Dust', and anxious looking over the shoulder at people I liked, hoping they were not as bored or lost as I was. It
18573-607: Was "too pre-occupied with tragic vision" or condemned his "Biblical and slightly mannered style", but "recognised that Clark's very excesses gave the History its profundity and distinctive insight". The respected historian John La Nauze , author of a highly regarded biography of Alfred Deakin , wrote that the importance of Clark's work "lies not in the apocalyptic vision of our history... which I do not understand, and which I am sure I would disagree with if I did," but in "the particular flashes of interpretation" which gave "a new appearance to familiar features". Alastair Davidson stated in
18724-605: Was Clark's future wife Dymphna, and not Clark, who was present on that day, although Clark did arrive in Bonn a fortnight later. Brian Matthews notes, however, that when Clark was reunited with Dymphna "as his diary records, on 25 November 1938" evidence of Kristallnacht "was still shockingly visible, and it was explicit and confronting enough to scar his sensibilities and live in his memory...With his capacity for imaginative reconstruction and his acute sensitivity to emotional ambience and atmosphere, what he saw of its immediate aftermath
18875-572: Was a "learned and sincere teacher" of "irreproachable loyalty". The Melbourne University branch of the Communist Party said that Clark was "a reactionary" and no friend of theirs. In July 1949, Clark moved to Canberra to take up the post of professor of history at the Canberra University College (CUC), which was at that time a branch of Melbourne University, and which in 1960 became the School of General Studies of
19026-407: Was a bible of wisdom both for those now living and, I hoped, for those to come after us". By this time he had rejected all the notions of progressive or Marxist historiography: "I was beginning to see Australian history and indeed all history as a tragedy. Failure was the fate of the individual: success could be the fate of society. If that was a contradiction, I could only reply that it was but one of
19177-573: Was a boarder in School House. Here, as an introspective boy from a modest background, he suffered from ridicule and bullying, and acquired a lifelong dislike for the sons of the Melbourne upper class who had tormented him and others at this school. His later school years, however, were happier. He discovered a love of literature and the classics, and became an outstanding student of Greek , Latin and history (British and European). In 1933 he
19328-476: Was a child; and lived in what one biographer describes as "genteel poverty" on the modest income of an Anglican vicar. Clark's happiest memories of his youth were of the years 1922–1924, when his father was the vicar of Phillip Island , south-east of Melbourne, where he acquired the love of fishing and of cricket , which he retained for the rest of his life. He was educated at state schools at Cowes and Belgrave , and then at Melbourne Grammar School , where he
19479-480: Was a reworking of an essay which was originally written in 1964 as a chapter for Geoffrey Dutton 's pioneering The Literature of Australia . It was worked up in some haste in response to the desire of the Macmillan publishing house for a new book with which they could cash in on Clark's popularity. Predictably, and with more than usual justification, Clark saw Lawson as another of his tragic heroes, and he wrote with
19630-457: Was all hopeless, lifeless, meaningless and false. I was in England, writing about Australia, writing about a country I did not really know, and about a country which I had a love-hate relationship". After some reflection, Clark decided that what he really wanted to do was write a vivid narrative of Australian history with a focus on the impact on the Australian environment on European colonists in
19781-552: Was always known as Manning Clark, and published his later works under that name. During this period Clark was regarded as a conservative, both politically and in his approach to Australian history. In an influential 1954 lecture published under the title "Rewriting Australian history", he rejected the nostalgic radical nationalism of "Old Left" historians such as Brian Fitzpatrick , Russel Ward , Vance Palmer and Robin Gollan , which, he said, tended to see Australian history as merely
19932-535: Was awarded the Order of Lenin – rather there is much evidence to the contrary. That being so, the Press Council finds that the Courier-Mail was not justified in publishing its key assertion and the conclusions which so strongly flowed from it. The newspaper should have taken further steps to check the accuracy of its reports. While the Courier-Mail devoted much space to people challenging its assertions,
20083-499: Was chosen as the old Military Hospital at Fort Phillip , on Observatory Hill . This school was not only intended to educate boys and girls, but also to serve as a model for other schools in the Colony. The school's name is derived from the name of a street which ran into the grounds of the hospital and became part of the playground during its reconstruction. The street name is perpetuated in the small street in Petersham that leads to
20234-544: Was close to James McAuley , founder of the conservative literary-political magazine Quadrant . McAuley persuaded him to become a member of Quadrant ' s initial editorial advisory board. Clark was, however, never fully identified with political conservatism. In 1954 he was one of a group of intellectuals who publicly criticised the position of the Menzies government on the war in French Indo-China , and as
20385-422: Was conservative in a historiographical sense (that is, not based on any economic or class theory of history), had come to be seen as a "left-wing" historian, and eventually he accepted this label, despite his fundamental scepticism and pessimism. This meant that left-wing intellectuals and commentators generally praised his work, while right-wingers increasingly condemned it, in both cases often without much regard to
20536-459: Was equal dux of the school. As a result, Clark won a scholarship to Trinity College at the University of Melbourne . Here he thrived, gaining firsts in ancient history and British history and captaining the college cricket team. In his second year he gained firsts in constitutional and legal history and in modern political institutions. One of his teachers, W. Macmahon Ball , one of Australia's leading political scientists of this period, made
20687-691: Was for him quite as shattering as the original event had been for Dymphna and others who had experienced it on the night of 10 November 1938". Clark was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in 1975. He was a Foundation Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities (1969). He won the Fellowship of Australian Writers ' (Victoria) Moomba History Book Award and the Henry Lawson Arts Award in 1969,
20838-476: Was in poor health, already suffering from the heart problems that were to overshadow his final years. In any case, Clark made it clear in this volume that his enthusiasm for Whitlam had not changed his views of the Labor Party as a party: Labor's founding leaders, Chris Watson and Andrew Fisher , he wrote, were dull and unimaginative men, who wanted no more than that working men should have a modest share of
20989-404: Was making the whole undertaking unworthy of the imprint of a scholarly publishing house". Ryan's article was attacked by a range of critics, notably historians such as Russel Ward, Don Watson, Humphrey MacQueen, Stuart Macintyre and Paul Bourke , and the critic Robert Hughes . The polemic raged along left-right lines. On 24 August 1996, the attack on Clark's reputation reached a new level with
21140-430: Was not an advocate of revolution. He was torn, he said, between "radicalism and pessimism," a pessimism based on doubts that socialism would really make things any better. Volumes II and III of the History broadly followed the path prepared by Clark's earlier work and ideas. Volume II (launched in 1968) took the story to the 1830s, and dwelt on the conflicts between the colonial governors and their landowning allies with
21291-406: Was nothing new to say about Clark's work. By the time Volume IV appeared in 1979, however, the tone of both his work and of the critical response to it had changed greatly. (This process was aided by Clark's retirement from teaching in 1975 – he no longer faced the demands of a professional academic career and was free to write what he liked.) Although Clark had rejected the nostalgic nationalism of
21442-402: Was published after his death. In September 1993, Quadrant published an article by Peter Ryan who had edited and published Volumes II to VI of Clark's History at Melbourne University Press. In this article he wrote that during this process "scholarly rigour and historical strictness were slowly seeping out of both man and History , and that a sententious showiness in both of them, as it grew,
21593-526: Was really a "bourgeois historian"). In 1975, the Australian Broadcasting Commission invited Clark to give the 1976 Boyer Lectures , a series of lectures which were broadcast and later published as A Discovery of Australia . The Boyer lectures allowed Clark to describe many of the core ideas of his published work and indeed his own life in characteristic style. "Everything a historian writes," he stated for example, "should be
21744-498: Was sharply critical of Clark during this period. When Paul Mortier reviewed the second volume of Select Documents in the Communist Party newspaper Tribune , he criticised Clark for his lack of Marxist understanding: "Professor Clark rejects class struggle as the key to historical development: he expressed grave doubts about whether there has been any real progress: and he has no good word for historians who pay tribute to
21895-406: Was supplied with the ameliorating influences of an education, which would teach every man, woman and child in the colony to form the habits of regularity, cleanliness, orderly behaviour, and regard for the rights of both public and private property, as well as the habit of obedience to the law, and respect for duly constituted authority. In Melbourne, Adelaide and Hobart his counterparts were preaching
22046-473: Was that most of his heroes had a "tragic flaw" that made their struggles ultimately futile. Clark largely ignored the 20th century historiographic preoccupation with economic and social history, and completely rejected the Marxist stress on class and class struggle as the driving force of social progress. He was also not much interested in detailed factual history, and as the History progressed it became less and less based in empirical research and more and more
22197-521: Was the English master and deputy headmaster at Fort Street Boys' High School. He published Inspirational Teaching (1928) on his teaching techniques. The school celebrated its sesquicentenary in 1999. Its student population is now a diverse one; students come from over 100 suburbs in Sydney, from places as far as Hornsby , the Blue Mountains , Cabramatta , Fairfield and Canterbury , and
22348-523: Was the conservative Thomas Carlyle . In terms of his evolving political views, a few years later, around 1944, Clark became a socialist of moderate views, a political position he maintained for the rest of his adult life, with political sympathies broadly placed on the Left and with the Australian Labor Party . In 1937 Clark won a scholarship to Balliol College , Oxford , and left Australia in August 1938. Among his teachers at Oxford were Hugh Trevor-Roper (a conservative), Christopher Hill (at that time
22499-474: Was the first of many critics who took Clark to task for too much speculation about what was in the hearts of men and too little description of what they actually did. The historian A. G. L. Shaw , who had been best man at Clark's wedding, said that while most of Clark's errors were trivial, together they created "a sense of mistrust in the work as a whole". There was also criticism that Clark relied too heavily on his own interpretation of primary sources and ignored
22650-399: Was turned into Manning Clark House ], an educational centre devoted to Manning Clark's life and work. Manning Clark House "provides opportunities for the whole community to debate and discuss contemporary issues and ideas, through a program of conferences, seminars, forums, publishing, and arts and cultural events". In 1999 Manning Clark House inaugurated an annual Manning Clark Lecture, which
22801-464: Was unfavourably compared with Geoffrey Blainey , Australia's leading "orthodox" historian (who coined the "black armband" phrase). Clark reacted to these attacks in typically contrary style by becoming more outspoken, thus provoking further attacks. These exchanges were made more bitter by the fact that most of the participants had been friends for many years. The attacks on Clark were not entirely politically motivated. Clark's professional reputation as
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