Family and Education

m. by 1675, Hannah, da. of Samuel Parmenter, merchant, of Norwich, 5s. (3 d.v.p.) 2da.1

Offices Held

Common councilman, Norwich 1688, sheriff 1693–4, alderman by 1700, mayor 1700–1.2

Biography

A worsted cloth manufacturer, Clarke was the father of Samuel Clarke, the theologian and Newtonian philosopher, and was described in biographical memoirs of Samuel as ‘a person of an excellent natural capacity and of an untainted reputation for probity and all virtue’, one ‘whose most excellent character . . . recommended him so to the citizens of Norwich, that they chose him without, nay against, his own inclination to represent them in Parliament’. In fact Clarke was only elected in 1701 after a stiff contest. He stood as a Whig, and his election was reckoned by Lord Spencer (Charles*) as a gain. At no point is it possible to distinguish his parliamentary career from that of his namesake, the Whig Member for Taunton. After being defeated in 1702 and at a by-election in 1703, Clarke withdrew from political life. His will, dated 10 Sept. 1723, was proved 20 Jan. following. He left property in St. Andrew’s, Norwich, and at Griston in Norfolk, together with a personal estate of some £800, the bulk of it in Bank stock.3

Ref Volumes: 1690-1715

Author: D. W. Hayton

Notes

• 1. Norf. RO, NCC 195 Megoe; DNB (Clarke, John; Clarke, Samuel); Samuel Clarke, Works (1738). i. p. i.
• 2. Norf. Rec. Soc. xxiii. 26, 64, 65; CSP Dom. 1687–9, p. 270; Blomefield, Norf. iii. 426, 431.
• 3. HMC Lords, n.s. iii. 133; W. Whiston, Mems. Samuel Clarke (1748), 4; Clarke, p. i; NCC 195 Megoe.