The son of Dr J W Clarke, of Huddersfield, praised by Sir William Broadbent as "the best general practitioner he had ever met". He graduated from Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he had been a Foundation Scholar, and was 33rd Wrangler. He received his medical education at the University, and completed it in Paris and at Guy's Hospital. He then held office as House Physician at the London Fever Hospital, Clinical Assistant at the Evelina Hospital for Sick Children, and Resident Clinical Assistant at the City of London Hospital for Diseases of the Chest. He succeeded to his father's leading position in Huddersfield at the age of 28, and it is to the credit of the father to record how successfully the son extended the practice. He was appointed Surgeon to the Huddersfield Infirmary, and devoted himself to surgery there till his death. Clarke was a hard worker, and when abdominal surgery was developing he gave himself a holiday by spending six months with Lawson Tait. He was abreast of the latest work and well equipped in every direction, as is shown by the fact that he was one of the first English surgeons to do a successful gastro-enterostomy with Senn's approximation plates, while his opinion upon chest cases was widely sought by his colleagues. For some twenty years Clarke was the leading consultant in and around Huddersfield. He possessed in a marked degree the 'aequanimitas' recommended by Sir William Osler, being at once shrewd, kindly, considerate to colleagues, full of experience, and never flurried. Clarke held many posts. He was Certifying Factory Surgeon, Referee under the Workmen's Compensation Acts, Medical Officer to the Post Office and to the Railway Companies. He had also served the office of President of the Yorkshire Branch of the British Medical Association, of the West Riding Medical Charitable Association, of the Leeds and West Riding Medico-Chirurgical Society, the Huddersfield Medical Society, and was Vice-President of the North of England Gynaecological Society. In private life he was a man of much charm, a keen sportsman, loving horses and so detesting the bearing-rein that he became President of the Huddersfield Branch of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. He was a good shot, and his prowess as a fisherman was remarkable. Not many years before his death he brought back from the Gulf of Mexico the tarpon weighing 136 lb, now in the Huddersfield Technical College Museum. He was a churchman and a conservative, a member of the public library and art gallery committees, as well as a candidate at one time for the Town Council. He was made JP for the Borough of Huddersfield in 1903. He was full of reminiscence and anecdote in society, a shrewd man of business, typical of Yorkshire. He left off general practice within ten years before his death, but continued as a consultant at his address, 52 Trinity Street, until he retired entirely about the year 1909. Never very robust, he died of Bright's disease at his residence, Kotona, Trinity Street, Huddersfield, on February 14th, 1910, survived by Mrs Clarke. Publications:- "Removal of Tongue by Galvanic Ecraseur." - *Prov. Med. Jour.*, 1887, vi, 105. "Tuberculous Peritonitis treated by Washing out the Abdominal Cavity with a 1 per cent Solution of Carbolic Acid." - *Trans. Clin. Soc.*, 1888, xxi, 43. "Cases of Gastro-enterostomy." - *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1889, ii, 1089; 1891, i, 798; and *Tribuna Med.*, 1890. "Extra-uterine Gestation." - *Trans. N. of Eng. Gynaecol. Soc.*, 1893. "Cases of Venesection." - *Quart. Med. Jour.*, 1895-6, iv, 362.