The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Clarke, Hon. William John Turner
Clarke, Hon. William John Turner, M.L.C., was the second son of William Clarke, of St. Botolph, Aldgate, London, by Sarah Turner, of Weston Zoyland, in Somersetshire. He settled in Tasmania in 1840, and subsequently acquired extensive pastoral property in that colony, and in Victoria, South Australia, and New Zealand. He married Eliza, daughter of Rev. George Pyke Dowling, of Puckington, Somerset, by Anne Biggs his wife, of an old and wealthy family of Bristol merchants, and had issue three sons—William John (now Sir W. J.) Clarke (q.v.); Thomas Biggs, who was endowed with his father's Quorn Hall and Brambletye properties in Tasmania; and Joseph (q.v.), who inherited the paternal estates in South Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania. Mr. Clarke was member for the Southern Province in the Legislative Council, and again in 1874.