Colin Clark was born on 2 November 1905 in London. He was educated at Winchester College and Oxford and Cambridge Universities. He graduated first in Chemistry and then in Economics. He described himself as ‘an academic economist with a considerable international reputation.’ He was a prodigious author of economic texts, articles and papers. He was an economic adviser to various governments in the United Kingdom, India and Australia. From 1938 to 1953 he advised the Treasury Department of the Queensland Government. In 1978, he joined the Economics Department of the University of Queensland as a research consultant, remaining for eleven years.