Dymphna Clark—A Portrait
Roslyn Russell recalls the life of a distinguished linguist and Canberra personality There is a portrait of Dymphna Clark, painted by Pam Houstein, hung in the sitting room in Manning Clark House, in the Canberra suburb of Forrest. It is placed above a couch, and at right angles to the large picture-window looking out onto the garden. It hangs above the place where Dymphna would sit, sewing or knitting, after having served morning or afternoon tea to the many guests who visited her and her husband, historian Manning Clark, at 11 Tasmania Circle—their home since 1953, and until she died in May 2000. Dymphna is pictured in her mature years—as I knew her—with strong, iron-grey hair framing a face that radiates strength, but also the warmth that drew people to her for advice and comfort. She was a natural hostess and friend, a fiercely devoted mother to her six children, and the staunchest supporter of her husband. The portrait illustrates her style of dress: a pleated blue skirt, and a simple red sweater worn over a shirt whose collar-peaks form the frame for a large, round European brooch. It also indicates her domestic tastes: a blue-glass vase on a shelf above hints at her love of the combination of blue and white in crockery, glassware, and table linen. The portrait also includes photos of her mother, Anna Lodewyckx née Larsen, and father, Augustin Lodewyckx, indicating key formative influences on Dymphna’s life, stemming from her combined Scandinavian-Belgian ancestry.
Dymphna’s hand rests on some books: her translations from German of the reports of the Governor of German New Guinea from 1886 to 1914 and, on top, her most ambitious translation, the New Holland Journal of Baron Carl von Hügel. If you look through the sitting-room window you see into the garden that embodies one of Dymphna’s great passions—the world of plants. Her vegetable garden was the source of much of the produce she put on the table as delicious soups and main courses at the countless lunches and dinners prepared in her tiny kitchen. Dymphna’s portrait, and its location, thus hint at much of her story. The larger picture must be sketched in words. She left no autobiographical writings; information about her must be gleaned from the memories of those who knew her, from Manning Clark’s account of their life together in the second volume of his autobiography, The Quest for Grace, and from two oral history interviews (TRCs 2597 and 3548) and her papers (MS Acc03/179) in the National Library of Australia. There is also information in the papers of others held in the Manuscripts Collection. Hilma Dymphna Lodewyckx was born in Melbourne on 18 December 1916, and grew up in Mont Albert, in a home that was a little piece of Europe set in the Melbourne suburbs. ‘Huize Eikenbosch’ (the ‘House of the Oak Wood’) was, as its name implies, surrounded by European trees. Her first name, Hilma, came from her Swedish ancestry; Dymphna from the Belgian. Her father, Augustin Lodewyckx, was Associate Professor of Germanic Languages in the University of Melbourne, and his daughter and son Axel were early taught the German language in the challenging Gothic script.
With such a background, it is not surprising that Dymphna became a specialist in languages. Without actually learning Swedish, she picked it up from exchanges between her mother and grandmother, and eventually became competent in several other tongues. But she would make her most significant contributions as a teacher and translator in German. Between her secondary schooling at Presbyterian Ladies’ College, and her entry to the University of Melbourne, Dymphna further honed her German skills throughout 1933 by spending a year with her mother in Munich, attending the Mädchenreformrealgymnasium an der Luisenstrasse. On her return, she began studying German at Melbourne University in 1934. There she was surprised to find how self-conscious and shy Australian students were, by comparison with those she had met in Germany. They also dressed very formally: girls wore hats, gloves and stockings, unlike Dymphna, who wore simple dirndl skirts, flat-heeled shoes and ankle socks. She recalled that she was known as ‘the mad girl without a hat or without stockings’. Dymphna’s disregard for the dictates of sartorial conformity or fashion persisted throughout her life. In her last year at Melbourne University she met Manning Clark. He told the story of their courtship, engagement and journey to Europe in 1938, in The Quest for Grace. On this, and on other matters relating to their personal relationship, Dymphna preferred to remain silent. She went to Germany on a Mollison travelling scholarship, with a view to studying for a doctorate at Bonn University. Larger historical events put paid to this however: the threat of war with Germany became ever more real throughout 1938, and Manning sent a telegram to Bonn telling Dymphna to ‘Come at once’ to England, where he was studying for a doctorate at Balliol College, Oxford. They were married in the Anglo-Saxon church of St Michael at the North Gate in Oxford on 31 January 1939. Sebastian, the first of their six children, was born in the Radcliffe Infirmary on 4 December 1939.
Manning’s book gives an account of their early married life in England, and of their return to Australia in August 1940. More children followed in rapid succession: Katerina (1941), Axel (1943) and Andrew (1948). After building a house in the then outer Melbourne suburb of Croydon, the Clarks moved to Canberra in 1949, when Manning became first Professor of History in the Canberra University College—later the Faculties, the Australian National University (ANU). In 1953, the Clarks moved into their Robin Boyd-designed house in Forrest. There Dymphna established the lifestyle for which the house became well known—a site of learning and scholarship, but also of generous hospitality and good conversation. Two more children were born—Rowland (1955) and Benedict (1957)—bringing the size of the family to eight. Money was scarce, and making do was essential. Following her mother’s example, Dymphna perfected the art of making meals almost entirely from the produce of her garden and chook house. Her cooking was hearty and uncomplicated (in her mother’s phrase, she did not serve ‘nightingales’ tongues’) and is fondly remembered by the many hundreds, possibly thousands, of people entertained at lunch and dinner by the Clarks over the years.
Dymphna’s life was not totally domestic however, though other activities were at first dictated by the need to earn some money for the household. Her linguistic talents took her in two directions—teaching, and translating. Dymphna had taught briefly at Blundell’s School in Devon, England, in the first year of her marriage to Manning. She resumed her teaching career in 1959 when she was asked to teach English to diplomats at the Soviet Embassy, a circumstance that was later cited in a mid-1990s attempt to denigrate Manning Clark as a Soviet spy. She left to join the German Department at ANU because they were offering more money, a compelling enough reason given her large family. She also later took on the challenging task of teaching German to her friends, including me. Humphrey McQueen, to whom Dymphna was teaching German at around the same time, described her qualities as a teacher in his 1997 book, Suspect History:
Dymphna’s linguistic talents made her a superb translator. She assisted Manning by translating foreign-language texts for use in his historical writing. She also worked with Peter Sack of the ANU’s German Department to produce a series of translations of reports from German New Guinea from 1886 to 1914. The most significant translation Dymphna undertook was the New Holland Journal of Count Carl Von Hügel, an Austrian botanist who visited Australia and New Zealand in 1833–34 and wrote a detailed diary of his experience. It was my privilege to work with Dymphna on this book, which was published in 1994 by Melbourne University Press, in the prestigious Miegunyah Press series. The passion for plants which had sparked her interest in a botanist’s diary also found expression at her property, ‘Ness’, at Wapengo on the far south coast of New South Wales. There she revegetated large areas, planting over a thousand small trees with help from Greening Australia volunteers. Dymphna also became an activist for Indigenous rights when, on the invitation of Judith Wright, she joined the Aboriginal Treaty Committee in 1980. Dymphna’s last years were clouded by a series of attacks on the reputation of her late husband. First of all, in September 1993, former Melbourne University Press publisher, Peter Ryan, launched a savage assault on his Press’s most lucrative product, the six-volume A History of Australia, and its author. She was devastated by this attack on Manning by a man who had always treated the couple as friends, and whose company she had enjoyed. An even more damaging blow came in August 1996, when the Brisbane Courier-Mail alleged that Manning Clark had been an ‘agent of influence’ for the Soviet Union and, in recognition of his services in Australia, had been awarded its highest honour, the Order of Lenin. Exhaustive examination of the slender evidence proffered by the Courier-Mail completely discredited the allegations. Nevertheless, the controversy took its toll on Dymphna, whose stoic defence of her husband was conducted with the dignity and courage she displayed throughout her life. The same stoicism characterised her last days. Dymphna battled cancer, keeping the severity of her illness a secret from all but a few. She died on 12 May 2000, just a little short of the ninth anniversary of Manning Clark’s death on 23 May 1991. ROSLYN RUSSELL is compiling Manning Clark’s correspondence for publication by Allen & Unwin in 2007 |
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