Jessie Deakin Clarke, was an Australian social worker, welfare officer, and refugee advocate.
Early life
Clarke was the daughter of Ivy and Herbert Brookes, and granddaughter of Australian prime ministerAlfred Deakin. Her father was a businessman, philanthropist, and activist who served as president of the Victorian Chamber of Manufactures. Her mother Ivy was a gifted musician, active with national and international councils of women and MelbourneWomen's Hospital. Clarke completed an Arts/Social Work degree at the University of Melbourne, where her mother served on several faculty boards, before doing further studies in New York.
Career
While in New York, Clarke was offered a position as junior delegate to the League of Nations Union in Geneva. In 1934, at just twenty years old, Clarke wore a spectacular costume representing the State of Victoria in The Pageant of Nations, a centenary celebration of European arrival in Victoria. The pageant was an initiative of the International Club of Victoria led by Clarke's mother, Ivy. The celebrations featured a visit from Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester. Clarke's dress was painted with scenes of Melbourne, with a cloak representing the State's irrigation scheme, and a headdress representing the Yallourn Power Station. She later donated the hand-painted skirt, two hooped petticoats, and the green velvet cloak to the State Library Victoria. The headdress and bodice were destroyed in the Ash Wednesday fires of 1983. After serving in Switzerland, Clarke later returned to Australia before the outbreak of the Second World War. She was a welfare officer with the Victorian International Refugee Emergency Council when Sir Frank Clarke made negative comments about refugees when addressing the Australian Women's National League. She took him to task for his remarks on "rat-faced refugees." Clarke married his son, William Anthony Francis Clarke, a few days after the outbreak of war. Clarke worked as a voluntary social worker with the Lord Mayor's Patriotic and Welfare Fund, helping with the issues of army wives and relatives in Sydney, and later in Melbourne, where her husband was stationed.
Nappie Wash
Jessie and William Clarke, along with Mary Adam and Harold Moran, started a napkin wash service in 1946 in response to the post war baby boom. The company's goal was to help overburdened mothers in washing the nappies of their babies. The company went on to become the first successful nappy wash service in Australia, and the second largest such service in the world.
