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W.B. Clarke As Scientific Journalist University of Wollongong Research Online Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice- Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice- Chancellor (Education) - Papers Chancellor (Education) 1992 W.B. Clarke as Scientific Journalist Michael K. Organ University of Wollongong, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/asdpapers Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons, and the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Organ, Michael K.: W.B. Clarke as Scientific Journalist 1992. https://ro.uow.edu.au/asdpapers/99 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library: [email protected] W.B. Clarke as Scientific Journalist Abstract This paper comments on W.B. Clarke's role as a scientific journalist in Sydney, 1839-1878. It also argues that Clarke has been misrepresented over time because large sections of his published work - specifically anonymous and signed newspaper articles - have not been considered in analyses of his life and assessments of his place in the history of Australian science. Disciplines Arts and Humanities | Social and Behavioral Sciences Publication Details This article was originally published as Organ, MK, W.B. Clarke as Scientific Journalist, Historical Records of Australian Science, 9(1), June 1992, 1-16. Original article available here. This journal article is available at Research Online: https://ro.uow.edu.au/asdpapers/99 existence; and that there is not one soli- W.B. Clarke as tary channel in which the interesting facts of scientific enquiry, agricultural experi- Scientific ment, or mechanical ingenuity, can be handed down to our children, registered for reference, or conveyed to other nations Journalist as a proof and evidence that this great and ambitious colony has yet been eman- Michael Organ* cipated from convict indifference, or the fumes of rum and tobacco. Abstract Harsh words indeed, in part echoing the 1829 comments of Archdeacon Scott following This paper comments on W.B. Clarke's role as a the failure of his plan to implement a com- scientific journalist in Sydney, 1839-1878. It also argues that Clarke has been misrepresented over prehensive system of education within the time because large sections of his published work colony, or to foster a body such as a Royal - specifically anonymous and signed newspaper Society.3 articles - have not been considered in analyses of So far as schools are concerned, Clarke is his life and assessments of his place in the history obviously here referring to the King's School, of Australian science. Parramatta, as well as Sydney's Australian College, St James's Grammar School, and Sydney College (now Sydney Grammar Introduction School). The King's School had operated since On 12 March 1847, a lead article appeared 1832, however it had fallen into disrepute in the Sydney Morning Herald entitled 'The during the mid-'forties when its master Intellectual Barrenness of New South Wales'. became insolvent; John Dunmore Lang's Aus- Though unsigned and exhibiting evidence of tralian College had opened in 1831 and journalistic exaggeration, it bore the mark of existed intermittently until 1854, closing that ubiquitous parson and scientific cru- between 1841-6 due to the depression; the sader, the Reverend W.B. Clarke. It made a Sydney College took students between 1835- scathing attack on the lack of encouragement 48. Private tutorship was also popular due given to matters of science and intellectual to the lack of success of these and other development within the colony of New South institutions, the most successful being Rev. Wales, and was based on a comparison with Mr Forrest (Campbelltown), Mr Cape (Syd- that other (former) British colony, the United ney), Mr Woolls (Parramatta) and the Sydney States.l Ladies' School run by the Misses Deane.4 The article followed a personal attack In Clarke's mind New South Wales, follow- against Clarke launched by the Sydney news- ing sixty years of white settlement, had little paper The Atlas on 16 January, questioning to show in the way of intellectual develop- his right to publish so freely - and anony- ment, especially after comparison with the mously - within the Sydney Morning Her- United States. It is accepted that the Arner- ald. Clarke, and the editor of the Sydney icans had 200 years' advantage, yet Harvard Morning Herald, initially replied to these College emerged in 1636, only about twenty charges during January-February.2 Then, on years after settlement. Australia had nothing 12 March, he lashed out with a general remotely like it in its first fifty years. attack on the intellectual state of the colony, Despite Clarke's assertions, New South in the following terms: Wales was obviously not an intellectual wasteland in 1847, however it did have its We really blush to think that this colony failings and our concerned parson was able has not been able to exhibit one single to use select examples to enforce his argu- public school worthy of the name; that ment. It was a fact that schools opened and those institutions which were once set foot closed with regularity, and there were real on, to serve as such, have, with scarcely problems with the local education system in an exception, fallen into decay or lassi- that year. Most children of the wealthy were tude; and that no society exists which may sent to England for a comprehensive educa- be called in any sense national; that not tion and the possibility of further study, even a periodical, save a newspaper, is though individuals such as William Windeyer able to maintain more than an ephemeral and David Scott Mitchell survived local schooling during this period to be amongst * 26 Popes Road, Woonona, NSW 2517. the first undergraduates at the University of Historical Records of Australian Science, 9(1) (June I9921 Sydney four years later. The influx of free 1 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 9, Number 1 immigrants after 1835 and the cessation of So far as the growth of wool, or the pro- convict transportation in 1840 had meant duction of tallow, or the increase of illicit that by 1844 there were 25,676 school-age spirits may go - so far as the consump- children in the colony, of which about 13,000 tion of tobacco and brandy and rum may were receiving no formal education.5 be taken as items in the history of our Clarke had for many years been an edu- advancement, no doubt New South Wales cator. He taught at his father's school between exhibits remarkable development and 1824 and 1831, eventually becoming princi- indefatigable perseverance. pal there, and also preached on the subject of religious education. During 1833 he had Clarke's article also addressed the lack of published in London a work entitled The a national scientific or literary society and Duty and Interest of Educating the Children associated avenue for publication, which issue of the Poor in the Principles of the National was especially irksome for the prolific Clarke. Religion. Shortly after arriving in New South He was concerned not only for the ultimate Wales he was headmaster of King's School, fate of his own researches, but also for future Parramatta for a brief period between July generations of Australians, and not only in 1839 and ,December 1840, and he lectured the area of science. on geology at St James's Grammar School, What had caused Clarke to write so pub- Sydney, during 1843. licly on these issues, and to declare the By 1847 Clarke held a real fear that the 'painful thoughts' he held for the land which children of the colony would not, in the fore- he would adopt as his own? Why was this seeable future, have the same educational Anglican clergyman not only involved in, but opportunities as their parents had had in actively promoting, public controversy? Why Britain. His article brought together private should he proclaim New South Wales intel- concerns regarding education and the pursuit lectually barren when he knew such a state- of science in the colony. It came after more ment to be an exaggeration? To answer these than a decade of public quarrelling over Gov- questions we need to understand some of the ernor Bourke's moves toward a National personal complexities of this scientistljour- school system based on the Irish model. Vehe- nalist, and also something of the climate in ment Protestant protests were led by the which he was operating. Bishop of Australia, W.G. Broughton, and supported by Governor Gipps. However Clarke's editorial was one of the last salvos The Life of W.B. Clarke in the churches' attack, and a dual system of William Branwhite Clarke was born on National and Denominational schooling was 2 June 1798 at East Bergholt, Suffolk, Eng- introduced by the new Governor, Fitzroy, in land. After receiving an education at the local 1848, following on from the recommendations school where his father was headmaster, Wil- of the Lowe committee four years previously. liam entered Jesus College, Cambridge, in In comparing Americans with Austra- 1817. He eventually received a B.A. in 1821 lians, Clarke noted: (which converted to an M.A. in 1824) and It is their intellectual superiority. It is, was ordained a priest of the Church of Eng- that with all their search after dollars, land in 1823. Whilst at Cambridge he was and their ambitious pursuit after commer- much influenced by the geologist Reverend cial enterprise, they have a feeling that if Professor Adam Sedgwick, then at the outset their country is to maintain its position of his notable career and already an enthu- amidst the contending rivalries of the siastic proponent of this relatively new older nations, it must not be simply by branch of science.
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