Alf Clint

Clint was born in 1906 in Wellington, New Zealand, to John William Clint, a commercial traveller, and his wife Lilian Lancaster (née Cawdery).^[1] The family moved to Sydney when Clint was a child,^[a] and he was educated at Balmain Public School and Rozelle Junior Technical School, although he left early due to his father's unemployment.^[2]

Clint worked for the Balmain Co-operative Society Ltd's store.^[3] Despite a Low Church upbringing, Clint was converted to the Anglo-Catholic Christian Socialism of Fr John Hope at Christ Church St Laurence.^[4] In 1927 he entered St John's College, Morpeth for training for ordination, becoming a lay reader in the Brotherhood of the Good Shepherd in the Diocese of Bathurst at the same time.^[5] He was ordained deacon in 1929, becoming a member of the Brotherhood of the Good Shepherd, but retained, on his insistence, both his membership of the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Workers' Union.^[6] As a member of the Brotherhood he was known as Brother Alf, and served in Tottenham.^[7] He was ordained priest in 1932, remaining a member of the Brotherhood until 1935.^[8]

Clint was then rector of St Mary's, Weston, New South Wales (1935-1941) and St Stephen's, Portland, New South Wales (1941-1948).^[9] Both Weston and Portland were mining towns, and Clint had the miners at church on Sunday mornings and at Lenin meetings on Sunday evenings.^[10] In 1938 he was granted leave from his parish,^[11] and he worked his passage from Australia to England as a pantry boy in order to attend the Labour Party fete at Thaxted in Essex, hosted by the "Red Vicar" of Thaxted, the Revd Conrad Noel.^[12]

In 1948 he was invited by the Rt Revd Philip Strong, Bishop of New Guinea, to become co-operative adviser at Gona, Papua.^[13] He walked from village to village organising Christian co-operatives.^[14] In 1951, suffering from severe dermatitis (which "caused his skin to peel off like a mango"),^[15] he was advised against returning to the tropics and became rector of St Barnabas', South Bathurst.^[16]

In 1953 he was appointed director of co-operatives at the Australian Board of Missions.^[17] At the time, ABM still had a number of Aboriginal missions, and Clint travelled around them, establishing co-operatives at Lockhart River Mission (1954), Moa Island, Torres Strait (1956), and Cabbage Tree Island (1959).^[18] In 1957 Fr Hope gave Clint a house, Tranby, for his work with Aborigines.^[19] Now (2021) called Tranby National Indigenous Adult Education and Training, Tranby is still run by the Co-operative for Aborigines Limited, founded by Clint.^[20]

By 1959 the Lockhart River co-operative was bankrupt due to the collapse of the trochus shell market.^[21] In 1960 the Rt Rev John Matthews was elected Bishop of Carpentaria; he considered Clint to be a destabilizing influence and, in 1961, banned him from entry to Anglican missions in the diocese.^[22] That led the ABM in 1962 to replace its co-operative department with an autonomous body, Co-operative for Aborigines Ltd, of which Clint was the general secretary.^[23] Clint was still general secretary when he died: the morning of his death he called the staff to his bedside, and urged them to continue their work.^[24]

Clint was unmarried.^[25] He died in 1980; his requiem mass at Christ Church St Laurence was attended by 500 people.^[26] He was cremated at Northern Suburbs crematorium.^[27]

Clint was the subject of an appreciative biography by his friend, the novelist Kylie Tennant, Speak You So Gently (1959).^[28] Unusually for a Christian cleric, he was the subject of a sympathetic obituary in the Communist Party of Australia's newspaper, Tribune.^[29] A memorial sanctuary bell was installed at St Barnabas', South Bathurst,^[30] although the church was subsequently destroyed by fire in 2014.^[31] The boardroom at Tranby is named after Clint.^[32]