{{Short description|Australian language scholar (1916–2000)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=September 2016}} {{Use Australian English|date=September 2016}} {{Infobox person | name = Dymphna Clark | image = <!-- just the filename, without the File: or Image: prefix or enclosing brackets --> | alt = | caption = | birth_name = Hilma Dymphna Lodewyckx | birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1916|12|18}} | birth_place = Melbourne, Victoria, Australia | death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|2000|05|12|1916|12|18}} | death_place = Australia | occupation = Linguist, historian | spouse = Manning Clark | children = Andrew, Axel, Benedict, Katerina, Rowland, Sebastian | website = {{URL|www.womenaustralia.info}} }}
'''Hilma Dymphna Clark''' (née '''Lodewyckx'''; 18 December 1916 – 12 May 2000) was an Australian linguist and educator. She was married to the historian Manning Clark.<ref>Jones, Philip (May 2000) [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2000/may/29/guardianobituaries4 ''Dymphna Clark obituary''], theguardian.com; accessed 6 June 2015.</ref>
==Biography== Born in Melbourne of Swedish and Flemish ancestry, Clark was educated at Mont Albert Central School and the Presbyterian Ladies' College in East Melbourne. Her father was Augustin Lodewyckx, the Associate Professor of Germanic languages at Melbourne University, and her mother – Anna Sophia (''née'' Hansen) – also taught Swedish at Melbourne University.<ref name="NLA" />
Clark finished Presbyterian Ladies' College early (aged 15)<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Matthews |first=Brian |date=May 2007 |title=What Dymphna Knew |magazine=Australian Book Review |volume=291 |page=18 }}</ref> and spent time at school in Munich, with her mother, in 1933. Returning to Melbourne, she studied languages to honours level at Melbourne University, where she met Manning Clark. In 1938, she travelled to Bonn on a scholarship to undertake doctoral studies in German literature.
She was there when Kristallnacht occurred, and left soon after with the increasing threat of war. She met with Clark in Oxford and they married there on 31 January 1939. They had six children together.<ref name="NLA">{{Cite web |url=http://nla.gov.au/pub/nlanews/2005/apr05/article3.html |title=NLA News, April 2005: Dymphna Clark—A Portrait<!-- Bot generated title --> |access-date=5 January 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060105222755/http://nla.gov.au/pub/nlanews/2005/apr05/article3.html |archive-date=5 January 2006 |url-status=live }}</ref> She taught at Blundell's School in Devon in the first year of her marriage and they returned to Australia in 1940. Clark became a distinguished linguist and translator, fluent in eight languages and able to speak another four. She lectured in German at the Australian National University in Canberra. Her translations included the botanist Charles von Hugel's ''New Holland Journals'' and, with Peter Sack, the German reports of the Governor of German New Guinea from 1886 to 1914.<ref name="NLA" /> She also worked on her husband's projects, undertaking editing and research.
She established Manning Clark House (Dympha and Manning's own house from 1953), and was heavily involved in the Aboriginal Treaty Committee (1979–1983); it was she who drafted the Council's preamble for review by Parliament.<ref>[http://www.manningclark.org.au/about/manning-dymphna.html MCH-Manning & Dymphna Clark short biography<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>
Since 2002, the Dymphna Clark Memorial Lecture has been given in her honour.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://manningclark.org.au/lecture-series-archive/|title=Lecture series archive|work=Manning Clark House Inc |date=2018-10-28|language=en|access-date=2019-01-09}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * [https://manningclark.org.au/ Manning Clark House] * [http://nla.gov.au/nla.ms-ms9873 NLA: MS 9873] Guide to the Papers of Dymphna Clark
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Clark, Dymphna}} Category:1916 births Category:2000 deaths Category:Australian women linguists Category:Australian National University people Category:Australian people of Belgian descent Category:Australian people of Swedish descent Category:Academics from Melbourne Category:People educated at the Presbyterian Ladies' College, Melbourne Category:20th-century Australian linguists