William Nairne Clark (1804–1854) was a public notary and publisher, active at the Swan River Colony and Tasmanian settlements founded in Australia.
His great uncle, advocate and judge William Nairne (Lord Dunsinane), provided his early education at Dunsinnan House in Collace, and he studied law to become appointed a life long public notary.
A letter of apology was refused by Clark and the court's determination found the publication was slanderous in their comments on the captain and the proprietor Charles Macfaull was ordered to pay £21 in damages.
[3] The ex-catholic cum missionary Louis Giustiniani, who returned from a tour of York decrying the murderous treatment of the Aboriginal Australians he had been appointed to Christianise, entered into an alliance with Clark to denounce the governor and gentry at Perth in his Swan River Guardian.
After a series of violent acts or reprisals, the popular sentiment of the colonists was challenged by Clark in an editorial that suggested the outcome of any war was the certain destruction of one or the other of the parties and ought to be dreaded by both.
[8][9] A land grant of 1,900 hectares (4,600 acres) was given to Clark and a Mr. C. Spyers at Wadjemup (Rottnest Island), west of Fremantle, and in the district around inland York to the east of the settlers' establishment at Perth, Western Australia.