- Entry type: Person
- Entry ID: AWE0622
Clarke, Patricia
- (Dr), OAM, FAHA, FFAHS
- Also known as Clarke, Mary Patricia
Birth name Ryan, Patricia
- Born 30 July, 1926, Alphington Victoria Australia
- Occupation Editor, Historian, Journalist, Writer
Summary
Dr Patricia Clarke is a writer, historian, editor and former journalist, who has written extensively on women in Australian history and media history. Several of her publications are biographies of women writers and others explore the role of letters and diaries in the lives of women. Since the 1980s she has played an active part in national cultural institutions and community organisations in Canberra and her work has been recognised by a number of awards and grants.
Details
Patricia Clarke was born in Melbourne in 1926, the daughter of John Laurence Ryan, teacher, and Annie Teresa neé McSweeney, bookbinder. Educated at St Anthony’s School, Alphington, and Notre Dame de Sion, Sale, Victoria, she matriculated with honours in 1942. Her studies at the University of Melbourne that included economics, pure maths, English and political science subjects, were interrupted by illness for four years with tuberculosis, which led to a reappraisal of her goals. In 1951 she joined the Commonwealth News and Information Bureau and became the only woman journalist in its Melbourne office, transferring to its Canberra branch in 1957. In 1961 she married Hugh Vincent Clarke (1919-1996), writer, public servant and former prisoner of war in Thailand and Japan. While raising five children, Patricia worked as a casual but full-time journalist with the Australian Broadcasting Commission in the parliamentary press gallery (1963-68); as the editor of Maxwell Newton’s weekly business newsletters (1968-74) and Canberra representative for Daily Commercial News (1968-74) and Editor of Publications with the National Capital Development Commission (1974-79).
Since the 1980s, Patricia has published 13 books, innumerable articles and 15 book chapters on women in Australian history and media history. Several of her publications are biographies of women writers and others explore the role of letters and diaries in the lives of women. In 2004 she was awarded a PhD by Griffith University for her thesis, based on six of her books, entitled ‘Life Lines to Life Stories. Some Publications about Women in Nineteenth Century Australia’.
She has also played an active part in Australian cultural institutions and community organisations in Canberra. She has been a contributor to and member of the Commonwealth Working Party for the Australian Dictionary of Biography since 1987. At various times she served as President, Vice president and Councillor of the Canberra & District Historical Association (1987-2004 and 2013 to date) and edited the Canberra Historical Journal from 1987-2000. She was a Committee Member of the Centre for Australian Cultural Studies from 1993-2003, was on the Manning Clark House committee in the first part of the 2000s and from 1995-2001 was founding honorary secretary of the Independent Scholars Association of Australia (ISAA). Elected an Honorary Member in 2001, she was a member of ISAA’s ACT council until 2018. A Committee Member of the Friends of the National Library of Australia from 1997-99 and its Deputy Chair in 1998, she represented the Australian Society of Authors as a member of the Library’s Fellowship Advisory Committee from 1997-2017 and chaired its National Folk Fellowship selection Committee 2003-17. She has been an active member of the Canberra committee of the National Foundation of Australia’s Women’s Archive project and served on the ACT Historic Houses Advisory Committee between 2010-16. She has been a Consultant to the Media Hall of Fame from 2011 to the present.
Her work has been recognised by a number of awards and grants. She was awarded a NSW Premier’s Department Cultural Grant in 1883; Literature Board Project Grants in 1986 and 1988; a NLA Harold White fellowship in 1993; in 1995 she was joint winner of the Society of Women Writers non-fiction award and was awarded a one-year Fellowship by the Australia Council Literature Fund and a two-year Fellowship in 2000-01; she was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in June 2001 ‘for services to the promotion of Australian history through research and writing, to the study of Australian writers of the nineteenth century and to the Canberra and District Historical Society’. She was made a Fellow of the Federation of Australian Historical Societies in 2002 and an Honorary Fellow Australian Academy of Humanities in 2005. In 2016 she received the Friends Medal of the National Library of Australia for her significant contribution to the NLA over many years. She is currently working on another book.
Events
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1995 - 1997
Vice-president of the Canberra & District Historical Society
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1997 - 1999
President of the Canberra & District Historical Society
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1989
Member of the Commonwealth Working Party for the Australian Dictionary of Biography
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1993
Committee Member of the Centre for Australian Cultural Studies (ACT)
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1995 - 2001
Founding Honorary Secretary of the Independent Scholars Association of Australia (ISAA)
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1997 - 1999
Member of the National Library of Australia’s Friends Committee
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1999
Vice-president of the National Library of Australia’s Friends Committee
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1989
Australia Council, Literature Broad Project Grant
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1993
Harold White Fellow at the National Library of Australia
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1995
Joint winner of the Society of Women Writers non-fiction award (for Tasma
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1995
One-year Fellowship from the Literature Board at the Australia Council
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2001 - 2002
Two-year Fellowship from the Literature Board at the Australia Council
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2001
Awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) For service to the promotion of Australian history through research and writing, to the study of Australian women writers of the 19th Century, and to the Canberra and District Historical Society
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2002
Awarded a Fellow from the Federation of Australian Historical Societies
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1987
Councillor with the Canberra & District Historical Society
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2000 - 2002
Committee Member at Manning Clark House
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1951 - 1961
With the News and Information Bureau, Melbourne, Journalist Grade D, Canberra, Journalist Grade C
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1963 - 1968
Casual Journalist Grade B with ABC in Canberra
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1968 - 1974
Journalist (Grade A) /Editor of weekly business newsletters with M Newton publications
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1974 - 1979
Editor of publications (Journalist Grade A1) with the National Capital Development Commission
-
1985
New South Wales Premier’s Department Social History grant
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1987
Australia Council, Literature Board Project Grant
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1998
Member of the National Scholarly Communications Forum (representing Australian Society of Authors)
Archival resources
- National Library of Australia, Manuscript Collection
- National Library of Australia, Oral History and Folklore Collection
Published resources
- Edited Book
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Newspaper Article
- Rich addition to area history, Clarke, Patricia, 2002
- The Federation decade, Bryant, John, 2001
- Those perfect English ladies, Clarke, Patricia, 2001
- Women who shaped an era, Clarke, Patricia, 2001
- "Comfort women" of the colonies, Clarke, Patricia, 2001
- Fascinating letters inspire novel, Clarke, Patricia, 2001
- Fighter for women's rights, Clarke, Patricia, 2001
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Journal Article
- Rosa! Rosa! : a life of Rosa Praed, novelist and spiritualist, Kingston, Beverly, 2000
- Rosa! Rosa! A Life of Rosa Praed, Novelist and Spiritualist, Evans, Julie, 2001
- Rosa! Rosa! A Life of Rosa Praed, Novelist and Spiritualist, Ferres, Kay, 2002
- Nettie Palmer : search for an aesthetic, Clarke, Patricia, 2000
- Book
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Site Exhibition
- The Women's Pages: Australian Women and Journalism since 1850, Australian Women's Archives Project, 2008, http://www.womenaustralia.info/exhib/cal/cal-home.html
- From Lady Denman to Katy Gallagher: A Century of Women's Contributions to Canberra, Australian Women's Archives Project, 2013, http://www.womenaustralia.info/exhib/ldkg
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Resource
- Trove: Clarke, Patricia (1926-), http://nla.gov.au/nla.party-640276