as a leading taxation expert. This brought him to the Cape Colony government in 1904–5 where he witnessed for the first time the establishment of a Home Rule territory – the South African federation.22 Clark’s ‘bluster about “setting up” the South African government’ caused some annoyance later on with personnel in Dublin Castle.23 He served as Assistant Under-Secretary to Ireland from September 1920 until November 1921. Following this, with the formal transfer of services, he became Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance and head of the civil service of Northern Ireland, a position he held until 1925. He subsequently served as governor of Tasmania from 1933 to 1945.24 His work as Assistant Under-Secretary was crucial in creating the structures of a functioning government for Northern Ireland when it came into being in the summer of 1921. Basil Brooke described him as the ‘midwife to the new Province of Ulster’.25
John Anderson, who himself favoured a different settlement to the Government of Ireland Bill, recommended Clark for the post in Belfast. Years later, Clark described a letter he received from Anderson in September 1920:
asking me whether I still was in a mind to come to Ireland and if so, whether I would take the position at Belfast of Assistant Under Secretary for Ireland … His letter ended with a sentence which at the time I did not understand; ‘I suppose you are not by any chance a Roman Catholic?’ … he realised as I subsequently did, that had I been a Roman Catholic I could never have been accepted by the Northern Government or been able to carry out my duties, even had I survived to undertake them.26
Once he expressed interest, he was interviewed in London by Hamar Greenwood, who had recently replaced MacPherson as Chief Secretary for Ireland. Greenwood then brought Clark to James Craig’s office in the Admiralty, where he was ‘vetted’ by Craig and two other prominent Ulster unionists, Wilfrid Spender and Richard Dawson-Bates. Clark later revealed, ‘I afterwards found … that really I was on show to Craig (and possibly also to Spender and Bates)’.27 At the meeting, Clark recalled that the Ulster unionists ‘were full of grievances’ and painted ‘a picture of the deathly peril which threatened all loyalists’. He later ‘discovered by experience how necessary it has always been to emphasise, even to exaggerate, the conditions in Ireland in order to arrest the attention of the ordinary Englishman’.28 As the meeting was ending,
Sir James Craig walked across to me and towering above this little man said ‘Now you are coming to Ulster you must write one word across your heart’, and he tapped out with his finger on my chest “ULSTER”. I fear that I only saw the humour of this and not understanding its importance at the time said, ‘Sir James, I can hardly do that, for the space is already occupied by two names … “The British Empire” and “England”. I am afraid “Ulster” can only be written after these’.29
Clark experienced a degree of distrust, even hostility, from some loyalists. Unionists were also unhappy with Clark’s ‘subordination to Dublin Castle: he would not, as had been construed from initial reports, enjoy the full authority of an under-secretary for Ulster’.30 At a meeting in Belfast on 13 October between Greenwood, Anderson, Clark and leading Ulster unionists, the latter declared they had ‘not the smallest confidence in the officials in Dublin Castle’.31 They believed many in Dublin Castle were nationalists, even Sinn Féin sympathisers. They wanted ‘an assurance that Sir Ernest Clark would have direct communication with the Chief Secretary. They did not want any possibility of leakage.’32 Greenwood responded that Clark ‘can send me information he can withhold from the King, the Pope and James MacMahon’.33 MacMahon, a Catholic born in Belfast who grew up in Armagh, was, like Anderson, an under-secretary in Dublin Castle. He was believed to be ‘sympathetic to nationalist aspirations for self-rule’.34 He came in for particular ire from unionists. At the 13 October meeting, responding to criticism of MacMahon, Greenwood said he had total faith in MacMahon, ‘an Ulsterman himself’. Thomas Moles replied, ‘Not necessarily a horse because born in a stable,’ which Greenwood said was ‘a most unhappy metaphor. The Saviour of the world was born in a stable.’ MacMahon ‘cannot help his birth or his religion’.35 Clark remained answerable to Dublin Castle, but as time went on, he became more and more independent of Dublin. He ‘knew what was expected of him and he soon dispelled Unionist apprehension. From the start he worked consistently and uncompromisingly for the interests of the future Northern Ireland government.’36
Northern Ireland was presented with a workable administration from the very moment it came into being, thanks largely to the efforts of Ernest Clark. He, supported by a small team of no more than twenty, worked tirelessly following his appointment in September 1920 to set up the machinery of a new jurisdiction with very little to work with. He later testified, ‘I found myself … setting out to form a new “administration” armed only with a table, a chair and an Act of Parliament.’37 He also claimed, ‘I will do my best to fulfil my role as “John the Baptist”, and as far as can be done with the small staff at my disposal, get together information and “prepare the way”.’38 He established a framework for seven new government departments, organised buildings for those departments as well as their furniture and office equipment, attempted to source accommodation for the new civil service and secured instructions, guidelines and templates from different departments in London and Dublin in relation to how to run a department.39 Since most of the equipment was obtained from Dublin, as Belfast merchants could not supply the office furniture in a standard form and in the quantity the new administration required, some Dublin businesses were ‘able to benefit commercially from the creation of the new civil service in Northern Ireland’.40 Clark’s efforts were somewhat ‘handicapped in that the existing all-Ireland system was bureaucratic, cumbersome, and quite unsuited to modern means’.41 Also, under ‘the Union the powers of government in Ireland had been distributed among some thirty different departments, and the problem was how these powers could be most efficiently grouped in Northern Ireland without producing too many office-holders in parliament’.42
Clark was in constant communication with Craig in the lead-up to the formation of Northern Ireland, ensuring a functioning state would be operational from day one.43 He consulted Craig on many ‘mundane essentials of laying down the North’s administrative foundations. Craig, for example, was directly involved in the problem of determining the appropriate number and functions of the future Northern departments.’44 Clark sent a memo to Craig regarding the recruitment recommendations for the Northern Ireland civil service, including the instructions that ‘no preference [is] to be given to anyone based on religious belief’ and ‘competition for places should be open to women’.45 He warned ‘against adopting an official policy that would disadvantage Catholics in securing government employment,’ as religious discrimination was illegal under the Government of Ireland Act 1920.46 At this stage, though, Craig had no official role: he was the presumptive Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. Carson resigned as Ulster Unionist leader in February 1921, handing the leadership to Craig.47 Greenwood, the Chief Secretary of Ireland, was also guilty of ‘displaying a telling disregard for British civil service tradition of neutrality in party politics, directed existing departments to prepare for partition by communicating with the Ulster Unionists’.48
When Clark moved to Belfast, he was initially tasked with establishing the Ulster Special Constabulary and dealing with the ‘expelled workers’ from the Belfast shipyards.49 The expulsions of workers and the sectarian violence in the north in 1920 saw Sinn Féin make one of its first decisions directly relating to the north. It started a boycott. The boycott in many ways increased the likelihood of partition. Once the violence in the north began, Dáil Éireann felt it could not stand idly by. It imposed a boycott ‘of goods from Belfast and a withdrawal of funds from Belfast-based banks’.50 In reality, the boycott soon extended to other businesses and farms, and beyond Belfast too. Many saw it as an anti-partitionist move, a way to show that Northern Ireland could not survive without the rest of Ireland.51 The Westmeath Independent had suggested in January 1920 ‘a clean commercial cut with “Ulster”’ as a protest against those in favour of partition (“the dirty birds that soil the mother nest”) … ‘Ireland could manage very well if Belfast fell into the Lagan.’52 Traders in Tuam in County Galway voted to boycott businesses from any part of Ireland that ‘permits itself
