Born on July 8th, 1784, the second son and second child of John Clark, of Nunland, near Dumfries, and Ann, daughter and heiress of Alexander Kennedy, of Knockgray, Kirkcudbrightshire. The family of Clark had been resident in Dumfriesshire for several generations. John Clark was probably educated at Dumfries Academy and graduated MD at Edinburgh. He served as Surgeon throughout the Peninsular War, and was left in Portugal in charge of the British wounded on the cessation of hostilities. He returned to England with the rank of Deputy Inspector-General of Military Hospitals and was stationed at Fort Pitt, Chatham, in 1830. He was gazetted Knight of the Guelphic Order of Hanover (KH) (civil division) in 1833, but as it had been decided two years earlier that the order was essentially foreign the decoration carried no title with it. John Clark’s elder brother, Lieut-Col Alexander Kennedy Clark, later Sir Alexander Kennedy Clark-Kennedy, received the KH in 1831 and was afterwards made a KCB. He too served in the Peninsular campaign, and distinguished himself at Waterloo by capturing one of the two French eagles taken on that day. John Clark married on Aug 19th, 1824, Mary, daughter and heiress of John Gilchrist, MD, of Speddoch, Dumfries, and by her had two sons and three daughters. She died in 1846. John Gilchrist’s father, Ebenezer Gilchrist (1707-1774), practised in Dumfries and was of sufficient reputation for an account of his life to be included in the *Dictionary of National Biography*. John Clark retired in later life to Speddoch, near Dumfries, the property of his wife. He died at Naples on Dec 18th, 1845.