Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Clarke, Charles Mansfield
CLARKE, Sir CHARLES MANSFIELD (1782–1857), accoucheur, son of John Clarke, surgeon, of Chancery Lane, London, and brother of Dr. John Clarke (1758-1815) [q. v.], was born on 28 May 1782, and was educated at St. Paul’s School (admitted as ‘Charles Clarke,’ 22 June 1790), at St. George’s Hospital, and the Hunterian School of Medicine. After obtaining the College of Surgeons’ diploma and spending two ‘years as assistant surgeon in the army, he a opted midwifery as his speciality in 1804 by his brother’s advice, and took part of his brother’s practice. He also gave lectures on midwifery, in co-operation with his brother, from 1804 to 1821. For many ears he was surgeon to Queen Charlotte’s Lying-in Hospital. He received a Lambeth M.D. in 1827, and was admitted M.A. at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in 1842. When his brother died Clarke became a leading practitioner in midwifery, and in 1830 was appointed physician to Queen Adelaide, receiving a baronetcy in 1831. He was elected F.R.S. in 1825, an F.R.C.P. in 1836, and became D.C.L. at Oxford in 1845. His only work, of considerable value, was entitled ‘Observations on those Diseases of Females which are attended by Discharges,' London, 1814-21, in two parts, second edition 1831-6; translated into German, 1818-25. He died at Brighton on 7 Sept. 1857. He founded the Milton Prize at St. Paul’s School in 1851.
[Pettigrew’s Medical Portrait Gallery, 1840, vol. i.; Times, 10 Sept. 1857; Gardiner’s Register of St. Paul's School, 199, 433.]