Frank Clune
Encyclopedia
Francis Patrick Clune, OBE, (27 November 1893 – 11 March 1971) was a best-selling Australia
n author, travel writer and popular historian.
, Sydney
in 1893, and grew up in Redfern
. He left home at 15 and for five years lived the life of an adventurer, claiming to have had twenty-five different jobs by the age of 17, and enlisting with the US Army in Kansas 26 October 1911, deserting and going to sea.
Clune joined the AIF
in 1915 during World War I
and was soon with the 16th Battalion at Gallipoli
. He was wounded in action and repatriated a year after being being wounded in both legs.
He married Maud Roy in 1916 although they divorced in 1920. He married again in 1923 to artist and sculptor Thelma Cecily Smith (1900-1992), established himself as a tax consultant and by 1930 had settled in Vaucluse
His first book was published in 1933 : Try Anything Once, an account of his adventures. Many of his subsequent books were written in collaboration with P R 'Inky' Stephensen, notably The Viking of Van Diemen's Land and The Pirates of the Brig 'Cyprus.
He was fascinated by the 'outsiders' of Australian history such as Captain Melville, Captain Starlight, Martin Cash
, Edward Hargraves
, Bully Hayes
, Jorgen Jorgenson, Chinese Morrison
, Ben Hall, Ned Kelly
, Frederick Bailey Deeming
and Louis de Rougemont
Clune also wrote for magazines such as Smith's Weekly
and ABC Weekly. He broadcast "Roaming Round Australia" regularly on The ABC
from 1945–1957.
Frank Clune was an effective promoter of Albert Namatjira
and Australian aborigines generally.
Clune had his detractors in literary world. He was criticised for embellishing the facts in the interests of the narrative, and was met with hostility by General Sir Thomas Blamey
for his "irregular methods and indiscreet utterances" during WWII. Regardless of criticism, by the early 1950s, his books had sold in excess of 500,000 copies.
Association with the Art World
In the 1940s, Frank and Thelma Clune opened an art gallery in Kings Cross
which was subsequently to house works by many of Australia's best known painters, including Sir Russell Drysdale
, John Passmore and John Olsen
.
In the 1950s and 1960s, together with his wife Thelma and youngest son Terry, he opened the Terry Clune Art Galleries on the corner of Challis Avenue and Macleay Street, and at 58 Macleay Street in Kings Cross. The gallery became the home for Sydney's young expressionists, such as John Olsen
, Stan Rapotec, Robert Klippel
and Robert Hughes
. The gallery later became the home of noted artist, Martin Sharp
and was then known as Yellow House. Frank and Thelma Clune were great friends and supporters of artist William Dobell
for many years.
at Darlinghurst, age 77. He was buried at South Head Cemetery. He was survived by his wife Thelma Cecily Clune and his two sons: Anthony Patrick Clune (1930-2002) and Terry Michael Clune (born 1932).
and by Sir William Dobell
for the 1950 Archibald Prize.
Frank Clune was awarded the OBE in 1967 for services to Australian literature.
's 1972 novel The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith.
His published books include:
1942 Prowling through Papua 1942 Tobruk to Turkey 1943 The Red Heart 1944 Captain Starlight 1945 Pacific Parade 1945 The Forlorn Hope 1945 The Greatest Liar on Earth 1945 Captain Melville 1945 Pacific Parade 1945 Dark Outlaw (about Frank Gardiner
) 1945 Try Nothing Twice 1946 (second Autobiography) Golden Goliath 1946 Song of India 1946 Roaming around Australia 1947 Ben Hall the Bushranger 1947 A Noose for Ned 1948 High Ho to London 1948 Wild Colonial Boys 1948 The Demon Killer 1948 Sky High to Shanghai 1948 Land of My Birth (short stories) 1949 Land of Hope and Glory 1949 Ashes of Hiroshima 1950 All Roads Lead to Rome 1950 Hands across the Pacific 1951 Somewhere in New Guinea 1951 Gunman Gardiner 1951 (new edition of Dark Outlaw) Castles in Spain 1952 Flying Dutchmen 1953 Land of Australia 1953 Roaming round Europe 1954 The Viking of Van Diemen's Land (about Jorgen Jorgenson) 1954 Roaming round Europe 1954 The Kelly Hunters 1954 Bound for Botany Bay 1954 Korean Diary 1955 Martin Cash 1955 Overland Telegraph 1955 Roaming round New Zealand 1956 Captain Melville 1956 Scandals of Sydney Town 1957 The Fortune Hunters 1957 Flight to Formosa 1958 A Tale of Tahiti 1958 Murders on Maunga-tapu
1959 The Blue Mountains Murderer 1959 Jimmy Governor 1959 Journey to Canberra 1960 Saga of Sydney . Halstead Press, 1961 Across the Snowy Mountains 1962 The Pirates of the Brig 'Cyprus 1962Bound for Botany Bay 1964
Journey to Kosciusko 1964
Search for the Golden Fleece 1965
Journey to Pitcairn 1966
The Norfolk Island Story 1967. Angus & Robertson Books. (ISBN 0 207 14537 7).
King of the Road 1967
Serenade to Sydney 1967
Scallywags of Sydney Cove 1968
The Scottish Martyrs 1969
Captain Bully Hayes 1970
Rascals, Ruffians and Rebels of Early Australia (collection) 1987
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n author, travel writer and popular historian.
Early life and career
Frank Clune was born in Liverpool Street, DarlinghurstDarlinghurst, New South Wales
Darlinghurst is an inner-city, eastern suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Darlinghurst is located immediately east of the Sydney central business district and Hyde Park, within the local government area of the City of Sydney...
, Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
in 1893, and grew up in Redfern
Redfern
Redfern may refer to:* Redfern, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney* Redfern , people with the surname Redfern* Redfern Froggatt, British footballer* Redfern , a Parisian couture house-See also:...
. He left home at 15 and for five years lived the life of an adventurer, claiming to have had twenty-five different jobs by the age of 17, and enlisting with the US Army in Kansas 26 October 1911, deserting and going to sea.
Clune joined the AIF
First Australian Imperial Force
The First Australian Imperial Force was the main expeditionary force of the Australian Army during World War I. It was formed from 15 August 1914, following Britain's declaration of war on Germany. Generally known at the time as the AIF, it is today referred to as the 1st AIF to distinguish from...
in 1915 during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and was soon with the 16th Battalion at Gallipoli
Gallipoli
The Gallipoli peninsula is located in Turkish Thrace , the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles straits to the east. Gallipoli derives its name from the Greek "Καλλίπολις" , meaning "Beautiful City"...
. He was wounded in action and repatriated a year after being being wounded in both legs.
He married Maud Roy in 1916 although they divorced in 1920. He married again in 1923 to artist and sculptor Thelma Cecily Smith (1900-1992), established himself as a tax consultant and by 1930 had settled in Vaucluse
Vaucluse, New South Wales
Vaucluse is an eastern suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Vaucluse is located north-east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government areas of Waverley Council and the Municipality of Woollahra....
His first book was published in 1933 : Try Anything Once, an account of his adventures. Many of his subsequent books were written in collaboration with P R 'Inky' Stephensen, notably The Viking of Van Diemen's Land and The Pirates of the Brig 'Cyprus.
He was fascinated by the 'outsiders' of Australian history such as Captain Melville, Captain Starlight, Martin Cash
Martin Cash
Martin Cash was a notorious convict bushranger known for escaping twice from Port Arthur, Van Diemen's Land...
, Edward Hargraves
Edward Hargraves
Edward Hammond Hargraves was a gold prospector who claimed to have found gold in Australia in 1851, starting the Australian gold rush....
, Bully Hayes
Bully Hayes
William Henry "Bully" Hayes has been described as a South Sea pirate and "the last of the Buccaneers", who together with Ben Pease, engaged in blackbirding in the 1860s and 1870s. Hayes operated across the breadth of the Pacific in the 1850s until his murder on 31 March 1877 by his cook Peter...
, Jorgen Jorgenson, Chinese Morrison
George Ernest Morrison
George Ernest Morrison , also known as Chinese Morrison, was an Australian adventurer and The Times Peking correspondent.-Early life:...
, Ben Hall, Ned Kelly
Ned Kelly
Edward "Ned" Kelly was an Irish Australian bushranger. He is considered by some to be merely a cold-blooded cop killer — others, however, consider him to be a folk hero and symbol of Irish Australian resistance against the Anglo-Australian ruling class.Kelly was born in Victoria to an Irish...
, Frederick Bailey Deeming
Frederick Bailey Deeming
Frederick Bailey Deeming was an English-born Australian gasfitter and murderer.Deeming was born in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, England, son of Thomas Deeming, brazier, and his wife Ann, née Bailey. He was a "difficult child" according to writers Maurice Gurvich and Christopher Wray...
and Louis de Rougemont
Louis de Rougemont
Louis De Rougemont was a would-be explorer who claimed to have had adventures in Australasia."De Rougemont" was born Henri Louis Grin in 1847 in Gressy, Vaud, Switzerland. He left home at the age of sixteen...
Clune also wrote for magazines such as Smith's Weekly
Smith's Weekly
Smith's Weekly was an Australian tabloid newspaper published from 1919 to 1950. An independent weekly published in Sydney, but read all over Australia, Smith’s Weekly was one of Australia’s most patriotic newspaper-style magazines....
and ABC Weekly. He broadcast "Roaming Round Australia" regularly on The ABC
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
from 1945–1957.
Frank Clune was an effective promoter of Albert Namatjira
Albert Namatjira
Albert Namatjira , born Elea Namatjira, was an Australian artist. He was a Western Arrernte man, an Indigenous Australian of the Western MacDonnell Ranges area...
and Australian aborigines generally.
Clune had his detractors in literary world. He was criticised for embellishing the facts in the interests of the narrative, and was met with hostility by General Sir Thomas Blamey
Thomas Blamey
Field Marshal Sir Thomas Albert Blamey GBE, KCB, CMG, DSO, ED was an Australian general of the First and Second World Wars, and the only Australian to date to attain the rank of field marshal....
for his "irregular methods and indiscreet utterances" during WWII. Regardless of criticism, by the early 1950s, his books had sold in excess of 500,000 copies.
Association with the Art World
In the 1940s, Frank and Thelma Clune opened an art gallery in Kings Cross
Kings Cross, New South Wales
Kings Cross is an inner-city locality of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is located approximately 2 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Sydney...
which was subsequently to house works by many of Australia's best known painters, including Sir Russell Drysdale
Russell Drysdale
Sir George Russell Drysdale, AC was an Australian artist. He won the prestigious Wynne Prize for Sofala in 1947, and represented Australia at the Venice Biennale in 1954...
, John Passmore and John Olsen
John Olsen (artist)
John Henry Olsen, AO, OBE is an Australian artist. Olsen's primary subject of work is landscape.-Biography:John Olsen was born in Newcastle on 21 January 1928 and moved to Bondi Beach with his family in 1935, which began his lifelong fascination with Sydney Harbour...
.
In the 1950s and 1960s, together with his wife Thelma and youngest son Terry, he opened the Terry Clune Art Galleries on the corner of Challis Avenue and Macleay Street, and at 58 Macleay Street in Kings Cross. The gallery became the home for Sydney's young expressionists, such as John Olsen
John Olsen (artist)
John Henry Olsen, AO, OBE is an Australian artist. Olsen's primary subject of work is landscape.-Biography:John Olsen was born in Newcastle on 21 January 1928 and moved to Bondi Beach with his family in 1935, which began his lifelong fascination with Sydney Harbour...
, Stan Rapotec, Robert Klippel
Robert Klippel
Robert Klippel AO was an Australian constructivist sculptor and teacher. He is often described in contemporary art literature as Australia's greatest sculptor. Throughout his career he produced some 1,300 pieces of sculpture and approximately 5,000 drawings.-Biography:Klippel was born in Potts...
and Robert Hughes
Robert Hughes (critic)
Robert Studley Forrest Hughes, AO is an Australian-born art critic, writer and television documentary maker who has resided in New York since 1970.-Early life:...
. The gallery later became the home of noted artist, Martin Sharp
Martin Sharp
Martin Sharp is an Australian artist, underground cartoonist, songwriter and film-maker. Sharp has made contributions to Australian and international culture since the early 60s, and is hailed as Australia's foremost pop artist...
and was then known as Yellow House. Frank and Thelma Clune were great friends and supporters of artist William Dobell
William Dobell
Sir William Dobell, OBE was an Australian artist .The electoral Division of Dobell is named after him.- Life :...
for many years.
Death
Frank Clune died on 11 March 1971 at St Vincent's Hospital, SydneySt Vincent's Hospital, Sydney
St Vincent's Public Hospital, Sydney is located in the inner city suburb of Darlinghurst. Though part of the New South Wales state public health system it remains under the auspices of the Sisters of Charity.-History:...
at Darlinghurst, age 77. He was buried at South Head Cemetery. He was survived by his wife Thelma Cecily Clune and his two sons: Anthony Patrick Clune (1930-2002) and Terry Michael Clune (born 1932).
Recognition and awards
Frank Clune's portrait was painted by Sir William DargieWilliam Dargie
Sir William Alexander Dargie CBE was an Australian painter, known especially for his portrait paintings. He holds the record for the most Archibald Prize wins; eight. He was an official Australian War Artist during World War II.- Biography :William Dargie was born in Footscray, Victoria, the first...
and by Sir William Dobell
William Dobell
Sir William Dobell, OBE was an Australian artist .The electoral Division of Dobell is named after him.- Life :...
for the 1950 Archibald Prize.
Frank Clune was awarded the OBE in 1967 for services to Australian literature.
Influence
Clune's 1959 book Jimmy Governor was the inspiration for Thomas KeneallyThomas Keneally
Thomas Michael Keneally, AO is an Australian novelist, playwright and author of non-fiction. He is best known for writing Schindler's Ark, the Booker Prize-winning novel of 1982 which was inspired by the efforts of Poldek Pfefferberg, a Holocaust survivor...
's 1972 novel The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith.
His published books include:
Selected publications
Cootamundra, New South Wales
Cootamundra is a town and Local Government Area in the South West Slopes region of New South Wales, Australia and within the Riverina. At the 2006 census, Cootamundra had a population of 5,566. It is located on the Olympic Highway at the point where it crosses the Muttama Creek, between Junee and...
1942 Prowling through Papua 1942 Tobruk to Turkey 1943 The Red Heart 1944 Captain Starlight 1945 Pacific Parade 1945 The Forlorn Hope 1945 The Greatest Liar on Earth 1945 Captain Melville 1945 Pacific Parade 1945 Dark Outlaw (about Frank Gardiner
Frank Gardiner
Frank Gardiner was a noted Australian bushranger of the 19th century. He was born in Scotland about 1827 and migrated from to Australia as a child with his parents in 1834,. His real name was Francis Christie, though he often used one of several other aliases including Gardiner, Clarke or Christie...
) 1945 Try Nothing Twice 1946 (second Autobiography) Golden Goliath 1946 Song of India 1946 Roaming around Australia 1947 Ben Hall the Bushranger 1947 A Noose for Ned 1948 High Ho to London 1948 Wild Colonial Boys 1948 The Demon Killer 1948 Sky High to Shanghai 1948 Land of My Birth (short stories) 1949 Land of Hope and Glory 1949 Ashes of Hiroshima 1950 All Roads Lead to Rome 1950 Hands across the Pacific 1951 Somewhere in New Guinea 1951 Gunman Gardiner 1951 (new edition of Dark Outlaw) Castles in Spain 1952 Flying Dutchmen 1953 Land of Australia 1953 Roaming round Europe 1954 The Viking of Van Diemen's Land (about Jorgen Jorgenson) 1954 Roaming round Europe 1954 The Kelly Hunters 1954 Bound for Botany Bay 1954 Korean Diary 1955 Martin Cash 1955 Overland Telegraph 1955 Roaming round New Zealand 1956 Captain Melville 1956 Scandals of Sydney Town 1957 The Fortune Hunters 1957 Flight to Formosa 1958 A Tale of Tahiti 1958 Murders on Maunga-tapu
Maungatapu murders
The Maungatapu murders were the events surrounding the murders of five people on the Maungatapu track in two separate attacks, near Nelson, New Zealand which occurred on 12 and 13 June 1866...
1959 The Blue Mountains Murderer 1959 Jimmy Governor 1959 Journey to Canberra 1960 Saga of Sydney . Halstead Press, 1961 Across the Snowy Mountains 1962 The Pirates of the Brig 'Cyprus 1962
Sources
- The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature W H Wilde (2nd edition 1994) ISBN 0 19 553381 X