Clarke, Janet Marion, Lady (1851 - 1909)

Janet Clarke (née Snodgrass) was a society hostess and leading patron of good causes in Melbourne from the 1880s until her death.

She was a member of the Charity Organisation Society, the Austral Salon, the Melbourne District Nursing Society, the Talbot Epileptic Colony committee, the Alliance Française, the Dante Society, the Women's Hospital Committee, the Hospital for Sick Children and the City Newsboys' Society. She helped to organise the Women's Work Exhibition in 1907.

Clarke's influence was such that she became the first president of the National Council of Women of Victoria in 1902, and of the Australian Women's National League in 1904.

• Snodgrass, Janet (maiden name)

Born at Doogallock station on the Goulburn River, Janet took up employment with William Clarke - one of Australia's wealthiest pastoralists - as a mother's help and companion for his first wife, Mary. In 1873, some time after Mary's premature death, Janet and William were married. They had eight children.

Janet Clarke was particularly supportive of educational causes - helping to establish the College of Domestic Economy (later the Emily Macpheron College) and the Melbourne Church of England Girls Grammar School. In 1889 she donated £5,000 toward the building of the Hostel for Women University Students at Trinity College (University of Melbourne). This hostel provided the first separate residential accommodation for women students and was later greatly expanded and renamed Janet Clarke Hall.

Despite her public activities, Clarke did not support women's suffrage and promoted domesticty as the ordinary woman's natural duty. She did believe, however, that women's maternal and domestic influence was needed outside the home.

Clarke also holds a special place in the history of cricket, due to her role in establishing the Ashes Test series. In 1882 Ivo Bligh led a team from England to play three tests in Australia. The team spent Christmas at the Clarke property, Rupertswood, in Sunbury. After losing a social game to the English team, Lady Clarke apparently presented Bligh with a small urn containing the burnt ashes of the stumps and announced that she would like it to be a perpetual trophy between the two teams. The urn was donated to the MCC in 1927.

Member

• The Austral Salon of Music, Literature and the Arts (1890 - )

Presided

• Australian Women's National League (1904 - )

  [1904 - 1909]

• National Council of Women of Victoria (1902 - )

  [1902 - 1909]

Sibling

• Hughes, Agnes (Eva) (c. 1856 - 1940)

Books

• Gardiner, Lydnsay, Janet Clarke Hall, 1886-1986, Hyland House, Melbourne, 1986. [ Details... ]

Book Sections

• Bartle, Claire, ''Most eminent woman' : Lady Janet Clarke', in Melbourne University Mosaic: People and Places, Melbourne University History Student Research Series, no. 5, Department of History, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 1998, pp. 39-53. [ Details... ]

See also

• Kelly, Farley, 'The 'Woman Question' in Melbourne, 1880-1914', PhD thesis, Monash University, 1983. [ Details... ]
• Sydenham, Diane, Women of influence: the first fifty years of women in the Liberal Party, Women's Section, Liberal Party of Australia Victorian Division, Melbourne, 1996. [ Details... ]
• The Australian Women's National League (ed.), The Woman, 1907-1934. [ Details... ]