CLARK, JOSIAH LATIMER (1822-1898), English engineer and electrician, was born on the 10th of March 1822 at Great Marlow, Bucks. His first interest was in chemical manufacturing, but in 1848 he became assistant engineer at the Menai Straits bridge under his elder brother Edwin (1814-1894), the inventor of the Clark hydraulic lift graving dock. Two years later, when his brother was appointed engineer to the Electric Telegraph Company, he again acted as his assistant, and subsequently succeeded him as chief engineer. In 1854 he took out a patent “for conveying letters or parcels between places by the pressure of air and vacuum,” and later was concerned in the construction of a large pneumatic despatch tube between the general post office and Euston station, London. About the same period he was engaged in experimental researches on the propagation of the electric current in submarine cables, on which he published a pamphlet in 1855, and in 1859 he was a member of the committee which was appointed by the government to consider the numerous failures of submarine cable enterprises. Latimer Clark paid much attention to the subject of electrical measurement, and besides designing various improvements in method and apparatus and inventing the Clark standard cell, he took a leading part in the movement for the systematization of electrical standards, which was inaugurated by the paper which he and Sir C.T. Bright read on the question before the British Association in 1861. With Bright also he devised improvements in the insulation of submarine cables. In the later part of his life he was a member of several firms engaged in laying submarine cables, in manufacturing electrical appliances, and in hydraulic engineering. He died in London on the 30th of October 1898. Besides professional papers, he published an Elementary Treatise on Electrical Measurement (1868), together with two books on astronomical subjects, and a memoir of Sir W.F. Cooke.
CLARK, THOMAS (1801-1867), Scottish chemist, was born at Ayr on the 31st of March 1801. In 1826 he was appointed lecturer on chemistry at the Glasgow mechanics’ institute, and in 1831 he took the degree of M.D. at the university of that city. Two years later he became professor of chemistry in Marischal College, Aberdeen, but was obliged to give up the duties of that position in 1844 through ill-health, though nominally he remained professor till 1860. His name is chiefly known in connexion with his process for softening hard waters, and his water tests, patented in 1841. The last twenty years before his death at Glasgow on the 27th of November 1867 were occupied with the study of the historical origin of the Gospels.
CLARK, WILLIAM GEORGE (1821-1878), English classical and Shakespearian scholar, was born at Barford Hall, Darlington, in March 1821. He was educated at Sedbergh and Shrewsbury schools and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was elected fellow after a brilliant university career. In 1857 he was appointed public orator. He travelled much during the long vacations, visiting Spain, Greece, Italy and Poland. His Peloponnesus (1858) was an important contribution to the knowledge of the country at that time. In 1853 Clark had taken orders, but left the Church in 1870 after the passing of the Clerical Disabilities Act, of which he was one of the promoters. He also resigned the public oratorship in the same year, and in consequence of illness left Cambridge in 1873. He died at York on the 6th of November 1878. He bequeathed a sum of money to his old college for the foundation of a lectureship in English literature. Although Clark was before all a classical scholar, he published little in that branch of learning. A contemplated edition of the works of Aristophanes, a task for which he was singularly fitted, was never published. He visited Italy in 1868 for the express purpose of examining the Ravenna and other MSS., and on his return began the notes to the Acharnians, but they were left in too incomplete a state to admit of publication in book form even after his death (see Journal of Philology, viii., 1879). He established the Cambridge Journal of Philology, and cooperated with B.H. Kennedy and James Riddell in the production of the well-known Sabrinae Corolla. The work by which he is best known is the Cambridge Shakespeare (1863-1866), containing a collation of early editions and selected emendations, edited by him at first with John Glover and afterwards with W. Aldis Wright. Gazpacho (1853)gives an account of his tour in Spain; his visits to Italy at the time of Garibaldi’s insurrection, and to Poland during the insurrection of 1863, are described in Vacation Tourists, ed. F. Galton, i. and iii.
H.A.J. Munro in Journal of Philology (viii. 1879) describes Clark as “the most accomplished and versatile man he ever met”; see also notices by W. Aldis Wright in Academy (Nov. 23, 1878); R. Burn in Athenaeum (Nov. 16, 1878); The Times (Nov. 8, 1878); Notes and Queries, 5th series, x. (1878), p. 400.
CLARKE, ADAM (1762?-1832), British Nonconformist divine, was born at Moybeg, Co. Londonderry, Ireland, in 1760 or 1762. After receiving a very limited education he was apprenticed to a linen manufacturer, but, finding the employment uncongenial, he resumed school-life at the institution founded by Wesley at Kingswood, near Bristol. In 1782 he entered on the duties of the ministry, being appointed by Wesley to the Bradford (Wiltshire) circuit. His popularity as a preacher was very great, and his influence in the denomination is indicated by the fact that he was three times (1806, 1814, 1822) chosen to be president of the conference. He served twice on the London circuit, the second period being extended considerably longer than the rule allowed, at the special request of the British and Foreign Bible Society, who had employed him in the preparation of their Arabic Bible. Though ardent in his pastoral work, he found time for diligent study of Hebrew and other Oriental languages, undertaken chiefly with the view of qualifying himself for the great work of his life, his Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (8 vols., 1810-1820). In 1802 he published a Bibliographical Dictionary in six volumes, to which he afterwards added a supplement. He was selected by the Records Commission to re-edit Rymer’s Foedera, a task which after ten years’ labour (1808-1818) he had to resign. He also wrote Memoirs of the Wesley Family (1823), and edited a large number of religious works. Honours were showered upon him (he was M.A., LL.D. of Aberdeen), and many distinguished men in church and state were his personal friends. He died in London on the 16th of August 1832.
His Miscellaneous Works were published in 13 vols. (1836), and a Life (3 vols.) by his son, J.B.B. Clarke, appeared in 1833.