Andrew Inglis Clark, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetAndrew Inglis Clark
Australian politician (1848–1907)
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
About Andrew Inglis Clark
- Andrew Inglis Clark (24 February 1848 – 14 November 1907) was an Australian founding father and the principal author of the Australian Constitution; he was also an engineer, barrister, politician, electoral reformer and jurist.
- He initially qualified as an engineer, but he re-trained as a barrister in order to effectively fight for social causes which deeply concerned him.
- After a long political career, mostly spent as Attorney-General, he was appointed a Senior Justice of the Supreme Court of Tasmania.
- Despite being acknowledged as the leading expert on the Australian Constitution, he was never appointed to the High Court of Australia. He popularised the Hare-Clark voting system, and introduced it to Tasmania.
- In addition Clark was a prolific author, though most of his writings were never published, rather they were circulated privately.
- Clark was also Vice-Chancellor of the University of Tasmania.
- Throughout his life, Clark was a progressive.
- He championed the rights of workers to organise through trades unions, universal suffrage (including women's suffrage) and the rights to a fair trial - all issues which today we take for granted, but were so radical in the 1880s that he was described as a 'communist' by the Hobart Mercury."Clark was an Australian Jefferson, who, like the great American Republican, fought for Australian independence; an autonomous judiciary; a wider franchise and lower property qualifications; fairer electoral boundaries; checks and balances between the judicature, legislature and executive; modern, liberal universities; and a Commonwealth that was federal, independent and based on natural rights."Clark made significant contributions to the Australian Constitution.
- Of the 96 sections of his draft, 86 are recognisable in the 128 sections of the final document.
- He was a proponent for the inclusion of rights guarantees in the Constitution. Yet he also had a rich and warm home life.
- He is described as "never too busy to mend a toy for a child, and his wife once wrote on hearing of his imminent return from America: 'to celebrate your return I must do something or bust'".
Read more at Wikipedia
See Also
- Famous People's Birthdays on 24 February, Australia
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- Famous barrister's Birthdays in February, Australia