Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 11.djvu/54

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Clerke
48
Clerke

dent until his death, which occurred at the seat of his son-in-law on 24 March 1687, at the age of sixty-eight. He was buried with his ancestors at Willoughby. A monument was afterwards erected on the north wall of the north aisle of the church, which some forty years ago was restored at the expense of the college, 'who for many reasons justly considered the president to be a great benefactor.' In his will he bequeathed to the college 'the sum of fifty pounds, to be laid out in a gilded bowl with a cover, and to be placed upon the altar.' Clerke has some verses in 'Musarum Oxoniensium Charisteria,' 1638, and in 'Horti Carolini Rosa Altera,' 1640. A portrait of Clerke, copied from one at Gawthorp, is in the president's lodgings at Magdalen College.

[Bloxam's Reg. of Magd. Coll. Oxford; Munk's Coll. of Phys. (1878), i. 358-9; Foster's Lancashire Pedigrees, sub ' Shuttleworth.']

G. G.

CLERKE, RICHARD, D.D. (d. 1634), divine, was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he was created D.D. He became vicar of Minster in the Isle of Thanet on 19 Oct. 1597, and afterwards obtained in addition the vicarage of the adjoining parish of Monkton. On 8 May 1602 he was appointed one of the six preachers of Christ Church, Canterbury (Le Neve, Fasti, ed. Hardy, i. 53). He died in 1634.

He was one of the learned men employed in the authorised translation of the Old Testament, being one of the class to which the portion from Genesis to 2 Kings inclusive was entrusted. A large folio volume of his 'Sermons' was published at London in 1637 by Charles White, M.A., one of the six preachers of Christ Church, Canterbury.

[Lewis's Hist. of the Isle of Tenet, ed. 1736, pp. 62, 101; Hasted's Kent, ed. 1800, x. 285, 292; Lewis's Hist. of English Translations of the Bible, p. 310; Anderson's Annals of the English Bible, ii. 374; Reading's Hist. of Sion College, p. 41; Harl. MS. 6350, art. 8 f. 16.]

T. C.

CLERKE, THOMAS HENRY SHADWELL (1792–1849), major unattached, military journalist, was a native of Bandon, co. Cork. Being intended for the army, a profession also adopted by his brothers, St. John Augustus Clerke, who died a lieutenant-general and colonel 75th foot, 17 Jan. 1870, and William Clerke, afterwards a major 77th foot, he was sent to the Royal Military College, Great Marlow, where he distinguished himself by his abilities, and was appointed to an ensigncy without purchase in 1808. As a subaltern in 28th and 5th foot he served through the Peninsular campaigns until the loss of his right leg in the combat at Redinha in 1811 incapacitated him for further active service, and, on the recommendation of Lord Wellington, he was promoted to a company in the 1st garrison battalion (Gurwood, Wellington Desp. v. 122), with which he did duty until its reduction in 1814. He afterwards served with the 2nd battalion 57th, and on the army depot staff. He was promoted to a majority unattached in 1830. He became editor of 'Colburn's United Service Magazine' when that journal was started in January 1829, and so continued until July 1842. On the death of Colonel Gurwood, he was entrusted with the task of seeing the last volume of 'Selections from the Wellington Despatches' through the press. He possessed a familiar acquaintance with the French, Italian, and Spanish languages, and, although his name does not appear as the author of any scientific or other works, was a very active member of the British Association and of various learned societies. At the time of his death he was a F.R.S. (elected 10 April 1833), a vice-president of the Royal United Service Institution, of which he had been one of the originators, a fellow of the Royal Astronomical and Geological Societies, and for a short time had been honorary foreign secretary of the Royal Geographical Society. He died at his residence, Brompton Grove, of paralysis, 19 April 1849.

[Army Lists; Colburn's United Service Mag. July 1842, May 1849; Abstracts Royal Soc. 1853, p. 888.]

H. M. C.

CLERKE, WILLIAM (fl. 1595), miscellaneous writer, matriculated as a sizar of Trinity College, Cambridge, in June 1575, became a scholar of that house, and in 1578-9 proceeded B.A. He was soon afterward elected a fellow of his college, and in 1582 he commenced M.A. There was a William Clerke, possibly the same, who was admitted to St. Paul's School on the recommendation of Mr. Malyne, and who received money 3 June 1579 and 20 Feb. 1579-80, on going to Cambridge, from Robert Nowel's estate.

He is the supposed author of: 1. 'The Triall of Bastardie. … Annexed at the end of this Treatise, touching the prohibition of Marriage, a Table of the Levitical, English, and Positive Canon Catalogues, their concordance and difference,' Lond. 1594, 4to. 2. 'Polimanteia, or, the meanes lawfull and unlawfull, to judge of the fall of a Common-wealth against the frivolous and foolish conjectures of this age. Whereunto is added a letter from England to her three daughters, Cambridge, Oxford, Innes of Court, and to all the rest of her inhabitants, perswading them to