Monica Clare
Aboriginal political activist and author
Mona Matilda Clare (13 August 1924 – 13 July 1973) better known as Monica Clare was an Aboriginal Australian political activist and author. She was the first Indigenous woman to publish a novel, though Karobran was published after her death.
Early life
Clare was born on 13 August 1924 at Dareel near Goondiwindi in Queensland. She was the daughter of Aboriginal shearer Daniel Herbert McGowan and an English woman, Beatrice Scott. She had one brother Dan. After the death of their mother, the children were sent to Yasmar home for infants at Haberfield and later fostered to siblings Bill and Stella Woodbury at their farm near Spencer on the Hawkesbury River. In 1935 officials separated Monica and Dan, who never saw each other again. Monica was then schooled at Strathfield, and was trained in domestic work. After many years working for Sydney suburban families, Clare was released from being a ward of the state in August 1942. She then worked in factories such as W. D. & H. O. Wills (Australia) Ltd's cigarette factory.
The public source identifies “Monica Clare” as aboriginal political activist and author. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Monica, Clare and Aboriginal.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Monica Clare”, the useful work is to connect “aboriginal political activist and author” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q21536783. The first chronological checks are 1924, 1973, 1935 and 1942.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Monica Clare” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.