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 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 ThaxtedinEssex, 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]
^""SACRIFICE"". The Sun. No. 6806. New South Wales, Australia. 22 October 1931. p. 27 (FINAL EXTRA). Retrieved 10 November 2021 – via National Library of Australia.
^Cook, Kevin, and Goodall, Heather, Making Change Happen: Black and White Activists talk to Kevin Cook about Aboriginal, Union and Liberation Politics, (2013: ANU E Press), p 62.
^"WORKED PASSAGE". Daily Examiner. Vol. 29, no. 9375. New South Wales, Australia. 20 August 1938. p. 10. Retrieved 10 November 2021 – via National Library of Australia.
