Born at Calcutta, the third son of William Fairlie Clarke, an officer in the Bengal Civil Service. He was educated at the High School, Edinburgh, and entered Rugby on September 29th, 1850. He matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, on June 2nd, 1852; graduated BA in 1856; MB and MA in 1862, and MD in 1876. He was intended for the Bar, but finding medicine more to his taste he entered King's College, London, as a student in 1858. He was elected Assistant Surgeon to Charing Cross Hospital in 1871 and held the post until 1877. A learned author, but disappointed by the slow advent of a surgical practice, and with an increasing family to support, he left London and settled in general practice at Southborough, near Tunbridge Wells, in 1877, where a drinking fountain commemorates his good work in the village. He married in 1870 and was the father of four sons. He suffered from a severe attack of typhoid fever in 1881, and in the early part of 1884 he showed cerebral symptoms of an obscure nature. He retired to the Isle of Wight, and died at Bonchurch on May 8th, 1884, being buried near the grave of his mother at Elvington, York. In London his name is perpetuated by the 'Fairlie Clarke Conversazione', an annual meeting for medical students begun by himself some years before his death and continued by the Medical Missionary Society. William Fairlie Clarke had deep religious convictions and was especially interested in medical missions and temperance questions. He wrote much on the medical charities of London, on the abuse of the out-patient system at hospitals, and on provident dispensaries. There is a photograph of him in *Leaders in Medicine and Surgery*, and there is also one in the Fellows' Album. Publications: *A Manual of the Practice of Surgery*, London, 1865. *A Treatise on the Diseases of the Tongue*, London, 1873.