scene-painter, journalist, politician and businessman, was born in London, elder son of Jane and Thomas Clark . He came to Victoria with his parents in 1852. From an early age he was obliged to earn a living – as a seaman, in a ships’ chandlery at Port Melbourne and as a tide waiter attached to the Customs Department (1870-71). According to an article on his father in the Argus on 23 May 1888, at Melbourne in the 1860s Alfred had painted theatrical scenery to pay for his education, although Colligan points out that his father was the 'Mr Clark’ responsible for painting Thomas Chuck 's Burke and Wills panorama in 1862, in partnership with William Pitt .
In 1871 Clark was elected to the Victorian Parliament and remained the radical member for Williamstown for seventeen years. During this period, critical articles on Queen Victoria he published in the Williamstown Advertiser (of which he was founder and part proprietor) resulted in him being horsewhipped by an angry reader, Mr D.C. Moodie. Normally, however, he seems to have been regarded as something of a hero in Williamstown. He was partner in an auctioneering firm there, director of several insurance companies and president of the Football Club. He made a fortune in land speculation.
Clark resigned from the Legislative Assembly in order to stand for the Legislative Council in 1887, but was defeated. The following year he left for London to float a South Australian mining company but died on board the Oceana outside Colombo on 19 May. His widow Alexandra, née Dickson, and their three children returned to Victoria.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
