Australian Dictionary of Biography

Clarice Kennedy, Fairfax Corporation, c.1932

National Library of Australia, PIC/15611/1772

Mary Clarissa Araluen Kennedy (1908–1998), athlete, teacher, physiotherapist, and nurse, was born on 4 September 1908 in Sydney, younger of two surviving children of New South Wales-born parents John Frederick Thornton Kennedy, draper, and his wife Elizabeth Sapphire, née Yarrow. As a child, she played Cousin Clarice in a children’s program on radio station 2BL. Known as Clarice, she was educated at Darlinghurst Superior Public and Fort Street Girls’ High schools. Though left-handed and forced to use her right hand, she excelled in literary, dramatic, and artistic activities. She wrote poems, plays, and school magazine content, constructed stage sets, performed in dramatic productions, and won a Girls’ Secondary School Sport Association (GSSSA) competition for cup and saucer trophy designs.

Kennedy was best known for her diverse sporting achievements. As team captain in 1925 she led Fort Street to victory in the inter-school competition for vigoro, a game resembling cricket with long-handled bats. Taking out the 100-yard school championship race in 12.4 seconds in 1924, she won numerous summer and winter school athletic and swimming competitions, and was awarded the prize for sport presented by Fort Street Boys’ High School every year from 1925. She dominated inter-school meets, winning running and swimming distances as well as diving events; helping to secure trophies and shields for Fort Street teams; and earning GSSSA cup and saucer trophies embellished with her own design. Participating in the school Lifesaving Club, she became the one of the first to earn the Royal Life-Saving Society’s Australian Bronze Cross award.

While at Fort Street, Kennedy recorded an Australian women’s 100-yard record of 11.8 seconds. After leaving school she recorded an unofficial world record of 12.2 seconds for 80-metre hurdles and backed it up with a 12.3-second hurdle race at the 1929–30 Australian Championships. Although she broke numerous records, she did not compete in the 1932 and 1936 Olympic Games. She injured her knee in 1930 and did not return to form in time for the 1932 Olympic selection season. Despite setting confirmed records for javelin throw (117 feet, 7.75 inches), 80-yard hurdles (12.2 seconds), and 90-yard hurdles (12.3 seconds) and winning four events at the National Games, she was overlooked for the 1936 team. Supporters persuaded the Sydney newspaper Truth to fund her participation and took her omission to Federal parliament for debate. The selectors maintained they never received her nomination, but she was disappointed that ‘the “powers” in my own State have branded me second-rate’ (Truth 1936, 17). She did compete in the 1938 British Empire Games, finishing fourth in 80-metre hurdles and seventh in javelin throw.

Described as ‘a fair-haired girl of obvious muscular development’ (Sydney Morning Herald 1933, 20), Kennedy continued swimming and diving, and played A-grade vigoro, basketball, hockey, and tennis. In the early 1930s she studied to be a teacher at Shirley, Edgecliff, and worked as sports mistress at Woodcourt School, Dulwich Hill. Discovering physical culture classes, she studied physiotherapy and began work at Langridge School of Physical Culture in 1936, where the principal, Tom Langridge, gave her charge of the women’s section. Over the following years, as a former elite athlete and leading female physical culture expert, she gave advice in the press on topics such as exercises for good figures, tips for attractive legs when silk stockings were rationed during World War II, and self-defence, as well as commenting on fashion trends like high-heeled shoes and very small waistlines. During World War II she gave lectures about physical education and led exercises for the Australian Army Education Service at Victoria Barracks. She coached Shirley Strickland in hurdling for the 1948 Olympic Games, and after Langridge died in 1949 she continued his work, acting as team physiotherapist and masseuse for a visiting Yugoslavian men’s soccer team and their Australian opponents.

Langridge had left his wife and mother a small weekly income and the remainder of the estate to Kennedy. His wife, Mary, appealed to the Equity Court and won, leaving Kennedy with an insufficient income. After suffering a nervous breakdown, she studied to become a nurse, graduating from St Luke’s Hospital, Darlinghurst, in 1954. Returning to teaching, she also enrolled at Macquarie University (BA, 1971; MSc, 1983; PhD, 1991), completing a doctoral thesis on pseudoscorpions. She started a bachelor of divinity degree, but never completed it; she died on 15 January 1998 at St Leonards and was cremated. Described as a very private person, she preferred the company of her parents, and had never married. Multi-talented, her achievements and legacy are significant and wide-ranging. The Kennedy Cup at Fort Street High School commemorates her.