Australian Dictionary of Biography

Max Hart, 11 January 1989

State Library of South Australia, B 70869/334, Messenger Press

Arthur Maxwell Hart (1916–2000), educationist and missionary, was born on 21 May 1916 at Mount Gambier, South Australia, second son of locally born parents Arthur Philip Clarendon Hart, teacher and Methodist lay preacher, and his wife Emily Grace, née Tilbrook. Educated at various schools in South Australia, Max moved regularly for his father’s work, sometimes joining preaching and teaching trips by horse and buggy. After completing his Leaving certificate (1933), he matriculated to the Adelaide Teachers’ College in 1935 and enrolled in courses at the University of Adelaide.

Though raised in a strongly Christian home, Hart became adrift from his faith during his high school years. In April 1935, after a gathering with young Christians several months earlier, he had a powerful conversion experience. ‘I knelt down at my bedside and prayed for the first time—a real prayer. I gave up my dancing, smoking and flirting, besides many other evil habits [and] … I found in Christ a new life and a joy unspeakable’ (Hart 1938, 3). Soon afterwards, he began preaching at local Methodist churches and joined an interdenominational evangelical group known as the Reveille Fellowship. He also began attending Holy Trinity, an evangelical Anglican church in Adelaide, where he met Melbourne-born Marjorie Helen Newland. They later became engaged. In May 1937 the State Education Department appointed him to a small school at Castle Springs, near Quorn.

In 1938 Hart offered himself for missionary service in Uganda with the South Australian branch of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) of Australia and Tasmania. He was accepted and appointed as a teacher to a mission station at Lira in the diocese of the Upper Nile. In late 1940 his fiancée joined him and they married on 7 February 1941. Marjorie subsequently contracted poliomyelitis, which compelled the couple to return to Adelaide with their infant son in 1942.

Between 1945 and 1952, Hart taught at Prince Alfred College, Adelaide. He also completed an arts degree and diploma in secondary education at the University of Adelaide (1950). In 1952 he returned to Africa with Marjorie and their two sons, David and Peter. They settled in the diocese of Maseno, Kenya, where Hart was the principal of Chadwick Teachers’ College, Butere (1952–61). Marjorie also undertook missionary work, notwithstanding her dependency on a wheelchair.

Returning to Adelaide, Hart was appointed in 1963 to a lectureship at Western Teachers’ College, which became Torrens College of Advanced Education in 1973, and from 1979 was the Adelaide College of the Arts and Education. Drawing on his experience in East Africa, and influenced by his wife, who had forged connections with Aboriginal people attending Holy Trinity in the 1930s, he became interested in Aboriginal education. In 1965 he began research for a thesis at the University of Adelaide (MEd, 1970) on Aboriginal education in South Australia and the Northern Territory. During these years, he travelled through central Australia, visiting remote communities and mission stations, where he identified deficiencies in the existing monocultural approach to Aboriginal education. Criticising traditional education, he recommended that curricula and teaching methods should be adapted to align with the cultural and social needs of the children. In particular, he advocated for bilingual education, special training for teachers appointed to Aboriginal communities, and training programs for Aboriginal teachers.

Though quietly spoken and mild-mannered, Hart was determined to bring about change. In 1968, having overcome opposition to his proposals, he introduced a year-long unit in Aboriginal studies at Western Teachers’ College. This was one of the first of its kind at an Australian tertiary institution. Further units and courses added in subsequent years included an advanced diploma in teaching (Aboriginal studies) in 1975 and an associate diploma in Aboriginal studies (1978). These courses were offered to both internal and external students and drew enrolments from around Australia. He worked particularly closely with the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara peoples.

Sometimes referred to as the ‘father’ of Aboriginal studies, Hart expounded his ideas on education in his book Kulila (1974). On his retirement in 1981, his colleagues honoured his pioneering work with a festschrift, Aborigines and Schooling (1981). In his role supervising the Aboriginal education program, he travelled annually to Aboriginal schools in South Australia and the Northern Territory, advising his students on teaching practice. He acquired a large collection of bark paintings as teaching resources to convey the richness of Aboriginal cultures. The paintings were purchased by the South Australian College of Advanced Education, and later accessioned into the University of South Australia’s Art Collection in 2000. A selection of them went on display at the Samstag Museum of Art in 2009.

Prominent in evangelical circles, Hart used his visits to remote and regional communities to record the personal stories of Aboriginal Christians, mostly connected with the Aboriginal Evangelical Fellowship. He published these accounts in A Story of Fire (1988). At Holy Trinity, he was superintendent of the Sunday School (1962–75) and a trustee (1969–91), with responsibility for the property and finances of the congregation and the appointment of rectors who would maintain its evangelical tradition. In the late 1970s he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and subsequently retired in 1981. Remaining active, he continued to play tennis and maintained a passion for gardening, and in 1982 was appointed to the church’s ministry team to visit sick and elderly parishioners. Predeceased by his wife in 1980, Hart died in Adelaide on 3 March 2000 and was buried with his wife in the Clarendon and Kangarilla general cemetery. His two sons survived him.