James Stanier Clarke

James Stanier Clarke (1766–1834)^[1] was an English cleric, naval author and man of letters. He became librarian in 1799 to George, Prince of Wales (later Prince Regent, then George IV).^[2]

James Stanier Clarke

Memorial tablet to Clarke in All Hallows Church, Tillington, West Sussex

Satirical print from 1814, The Divine and the Donkey–or Petworth Frolicks against George (the Prince Regent) and James Stanier Clarke. A drunken parson is being put to bed with an ass-foal wrapped in a petticoat, a prank after celebrations of the battle of Leipzig. The parson is identified in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography as Clarke:^[1] he was being 'punished' for setting up an assignation with a servant-girl. The incident at Petworth House was real, but the presence of George seems to be fictional.

Early life

The eldest son of Edward Clarke and Anne Grenfield, and brother of Edward Daniel Clarke, he was born on 17 December 1766 at Mahon, Minorca where his father was at the time chaplain to the governor.^[1] He was educated at Uckfield School^[3] and then at Tonbridge School under Vicesimus Knox. Matriculating at St John's College, Cambridge in 1784, he did not complete a first degree.^[1][4][5]

Having taken holy orders, Clarke was in 1790 appointed to the rectory of Preston, Sussex.^[4] About the beginning of 1791 he was living in Sussex with his mother, taking in the refugee Anthony Charles Cazenove for half a year.^[6] In 1792 he was living at Eartham with William Hayley;^[7] Thomas Alphonso Hayley made a bust of him.^[8]

Courtier

Clarke in February 1795 entered the Royal Navy as a chaplain; and served, 1796–99, on board HMS Impetueux in the Channel fleet, under the command of captain John Willett Payne, by whom he was introduced to George, Prince of Wales. It was the end of his service afloat, after George appointed him his domestic chaplain and librarian.^[4]

In 1806, Clarke took the degree of Bachelor of Laws (LLB) at Cambridge, and in 1816 the further degree of Legum Doctor (LLD) was conferred on him per literas regias. George had him made historiographer to the king on the death of Louis Dutens in 1812. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Society.^[4][9]

From 1815 for a short period Clarke was in contact with Jane Austen about her novel-writing: they were introduced by Austen's friend the surgeon Charles Thomas Haden.^[10] Having shown Austen round the library at Carlton House in November, and arranged that George should have Emma dedicated to him, Clarke also made suggestions in correspondence for Austen's future writing. These she mocked in the satirical manuscript Plan of a Novel, according to Hints from Various Quarters, not published in her lifetime.^[11]

Clarke was installed canon of Windsor, 19 May 1821; and was Deputy Clerk of the Closet to the king.^[4] The canonry came about by compromise between George IV (as George had become) and Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool the Prime Minister, in a clash over preferment for Charles Sumner. Under a deal struck, Sumner took on Clarke's royal appointments.^[12]

Clarke died on 4 October 1834.^[4]

Works

In 1798, Clarke published a volume of Sermons preached in the Western Squadron during its services off Brest, on board HM ship Impetueux (1798; 2nd edit. 1801). With John McArthur, a purser in the navy and secretary to Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood at Toulon, he started the Naval Chronicle, a monthly magazine of naval history and biography, which ran for twenty years. In 1803 he published the first volume of The Progress of Maritime Discovery, which was not continued. He issued in 1805 Naufragia, or Historical Memoirs of Shipwrecks (3 vols.).^[4] Its subtitle "of the Providential Deliverance of Vessels" reflects its traditional content, harking back to James Janeway.^[13]

In 1809, with McArthur, Clarke published his major work, The Life of Lord Nelson (2 vols.; 2nd edit. 1840). It mixed official and private letters, and made questionable use of its sources.^[4] Robert Southey criticised it destructively in the Quarterly Review, a culmination of his literary feud with Clarke that led also to Southey writing his own Nelson biography.^[14]

In 1816, Clarke published a Life of King James II, from the Stuart MSS. in Carlton House (2 vols.). The work contains portions of the king's autobiography, the original of which is now lost;^[4] in the Dictionary of National Biography it was considered to be the work of Lewis Innes, where Clarke attributed it to his brother Thomas Innes.^[15] A modern scholarly view is that the work was written in two parts by different Jacobite courtiers, the first part (to 1677) being by John Caryll, the second by William Dicconson. David Nairne assisted Caryll.^[16][17]

Clarke also edited William Falconer's The Shipwreck, with life of the author and notes (1804), which ran to several editions, and Lord Clarendon's Essays (1815, 2 vols.).^[4]

Notes

1. Morriss, Roger. "Clarke, James Stanier". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/5504. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
2. "A Field Guide to the English Clergy' Butler-Gallie, F p149: London, Oneworld Publications, 2018 ISBN 9781786074416
3. Mark Antony Lower, The Worthies of Sussex (1865), p. 63: "In fact, Uckfield school enjoyed considerable celebrity. During the mastership of the Robert Gerison, James Stanier Clarke, and his brother Edward Daniel Clarke, the well-known traveller, received their rudimentary education there..."
4. Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1887). "Clarke, James Stanier" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 10. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
5. "Clarke, James Stanier (CLRK784JS)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
6. Askling, John; Cazenove, Anthony-Charles (1970). "Autobiographical Sketch of Anthony-Charles Cazenove: Political Refugee, Merchant, and Banker, 1775-1852". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 78 (3): 295–307. JSTOR 4247580.
7. Leary, Lewis (1949). "Joel Barlow and William Hayley: A Correspondence". American Literature. 21 (3): 325–334. doi:10.2307/2921248. JSTOR 2921248.
8. Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney, eds. (1891). "Hayley, Thomas Alphonso" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 25. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
9. Lynda Pratt (1 November 2007). Robert Southey and the Contexts of English Romanticism. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 104. ISBN 978-0-7546-8184-7. Retrieved 4 September 2013.
10. Halperin, John (1985). "Jane Austen's Lovers". SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900. 25 (4): 719–736. doi:10.2307/450671. JSTOR 450671.
11. Poplawski, Paul (1998). A Jane Austen Encyclopedia. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 238–239. ISBN 978-0-313-30017-2.
12. Lee, Sidney, ed. (1898). "Sumner, Charles Richard" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 55. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
13. Clark, J. C. D. (2003). "Providence, Predestination and Progress: Or, Did the Enlightenment Fail?". Albion. 35 (4): 559–589. doi:10.2307/4054295. JSTOR 4054295.
14. William Arthur Speck (2006). Robert Southey: Entire Man of Letters. Yale University Press. p. 137. ISBN 978-0-300-11681-6. Retrieved 4 September 2013.
15. Lee, Sidney, ed. (1892). "Innes, Lewis" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 29. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
16. Gregg, Edward (1993). "New Light on the Authorship of the Life of James II". The English Historical Review. 108 (429): 947–965. doi:10.1093/ehr/CVIII.CCCCXXIX.947. JSTOR 575537.
17. Corp, Edward. "Nairne, David". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/46463. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1887). "Clarke, James Stanier". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 10. London: Smith, Elder & Co.