CLARKE, WILLIAM BRANWHITE (1798-1878), British geologist, was born at East Bergholt, in Suffolk, on the 2nd of June 1798. He received his early education at Dedham grammar school, and in 1817 entered Jesus College, Cambridge; he took his B.A. in 1821, was ordained and became M.A. in 1824. In 1821 he was appointed curate of Ramsholt in Suffolk, and he acted in his clerical capacity in other places until 1839. Having become interested in geology through the teachings of Sedgwick, he utilized his opportunities and gathered many interesting facts on the geology of East Anglia which were embodied in a paper “On the Geological Structure and Phenomena of Suffolk” (Trans. Geol. Soc. 1837). He also communicated a series of papers on the geology of S.E. Dorsetshire to the Magazine of Nat. Hist. (1837-1838). In 1839, after a severe illness, he left England for New South Wales, mainly with the object of benefiting by the sea voyage. He remained, however, in that country, and came to be regarded as the “Father of Australian Geology.” From the date of his arrival in New South Wales until 1870 he was in clerical charge first of the country from Paramatta to the Hawkesbury river, then of Campbelltown, and finally of Willoughby. He zealously devoted attention to the geology of the country, with results that have been of paramount importance. In 1841 he discovered gold, being the first explorer who had obtained it in situ in the country, finding it both in the detrital deposits and in the quartzites of the Blue Mountains, and he then declared his belief in its abundance. In 1849 he made the first actual discovery of tin in Australia and in 1859 he made known the occurrence of the diamond. He was also the first to indicate the presence of Silurian rocks, and to determine the age of the coal-bearing rocks in New South Wales. In 1869 he announced the discovery of remains of Dinornis in Queensland. He was a trustee of the Australian museum at Sydney, and an active member of the Royal Society of New South Wales. In 1860 he published Researches in the Southern Gold-fields of New South Wales. He was elected F.R.S. in 1876, and in the following year was awarded the Murchison medal by the Geological Society of London. His contributions to Australian scientific journals were numerous. He died near Sydney, on the 17th of June 1878.
CLARKSON, THOMAS (1760-1846), English anti-slavery agitator, was born on the 28th of March 1760, at Wisbeach, in Cambridgeshire, where his father was headmaster of the free grammar school. He was educated at St Paul’s school and at St John’s College, Cambridge. Having taken the first place among the middle bachelors as Latin essayist, he succeeded in 1785 in gaining a similar honour among the senior bachelors. The subject appointed by the vice-chancellor, Dr Peckhard, was one in which he was himself deeply interested—Anne liceat invitos in servitutem dare? (Is it right to make men slaves against their will?). In preparing for this essay Clarkson consulted a number of works on African slavery, of which the chief was Benezet’s Historical Survey of New Guinea; and the atrocities of which he read affected him so deeply that he determined to devote all his energies to effect the abolition of the slave trade, and gave up his intention of entering the church.
His first measure was to publish, with additions, an English translation of his prize essay (June 1786). He then commenced to search in all quarters for information concerning slavery. He soon discovered that the cause had already been taken up to some extent by others, most of whom belonged to the Society of Friends, and among the chief of whom were William Dillwyn, Joseph Wood and Granville Sharp. With the aid of these gentlemen, a committee of twelve was formed in May 1787 to do all that was possible to effect the abolition of the slave trade. Meanwhile Clarkson had also gained the sympathy of Wilberforce, Whitbread, Sturge and several other men of influence. Travelling from port to port, he now commenced to collect a large mass of evidence; and much of it was embodied in his Summary View of the Slave Trade, and the Probable Consequences of its Abolition, which, with a number of other anti-slavery tracts, was published by the committee. Pitt, Grenville, Fox and Burke looked favourably on the movement; in May 1788 Pitt introduced a parliamentary discussion on the subject, and Sir W. Dolben brought forward a bill providing that the number of slaves carried in a vessel should be proportional to its tonnage. A number of Liverpool and Bristol merchants obtained permission from the House to be heard by council against the bill, but on the 18th of June it passed the Commons. Soon after Clarkson published an Essay on the Impolicy of the Slave Trade; and for two months he was continuously engaged in travelling that he might meet men who were personally acquainted with the facts of the trade. From their lips he collected a considerable amount of evidence; but only nine could be prevailed upon to promise to appear before the privy council. Meanwhile other witnesses had been obtained by Wilberforce and the committee, and on the 12th of May 1789 the former led a debate on the subject in the House of Commons, in which he was seconded by Burke and supported by Pitt and Fox.
It was now the beginning of the French Revolution, and in the hope that he might arouse the French to sweep away slavery with other abuses, Clarkson crossed to Paris, where he remained six months. He found Necker head of the government, and obtained from him some sympathy but little help. Mirabeau, however, with his assistance, prepared a speech against slavery, to be delivered before the National Assembly, and the Marquis de la Fayette entered enthusiastically into his views. During this visit Clarkson met a deputation of negroes from Santo Domingo, who had come to France to present a petition to the National Assembly, desiring to be placed on an equal footing with the whites; but the storm of the Revolution permitted no substantial success to be achieved. Soon after his return home he engaged in a search, the apparent hopelessness of which finely displays his unshrinking laboriousness and his passionate enthusiasm. He desired to find some one who had himself witnessed the capture of the negroes in Africa; and a friend having met by chance a man-of-war’s-man who had done so, Clarkson, though ignorant of the name and address of the sailor, set out in search of him, and actually discovered him. His last tour was undertaken in order to form anti-slavery committees in all the principal towns. At length, in the autumn of 1794, his health gave way, and he was obliged to cease active work. He now occupied his time in writing a History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, which appeared in 1808. The bill for the abolition of the trade became law in 1807; but it was still necessary to secure the assent of the other powers to its principle. To obtain this was, under pressure of the public opinion created by Clarkson and his friends, one of the main objects of British diplomacy at the Congress of Vienna, and in February 1815 the trade was condemned by the powers. The question of concerting practical measures for its abolition was raised at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818, but without result. On this occasion Clarkson personally presented an address to the emperor Alexander I., who communicated it to the sovereigns of Austria and Prussia. In 1823 the Anti-Slavery Society was formed, and Clarkson was one of its vice-presidents. He was for some time blind from cataract; but several years before his death on the 26th of September 1846, his sight was restored.
Besides the works already mentioned, he published the Portraiture of Quakerism (1806), Memoirs of William Penn (1813), Researches, Antediluvian, Patriarchal and Historical (1836), intended as a history of the interference of Providence for man’s spiritual good, and Strictures on several of the remarks concerning himself made in the Life of Wilberforce, in which his claim as originator of the anti-slavery movement is denied.
See the lives by Thomas Elmes (1876) and Thomas Taylor (1839).
CLARKSVILLE, a city and the county-seat of Montgomery county, Tennessee, U.S.A., situated in the N. part of the state, about 50 m. N.W. of Nashville, on the Cumberland river, at the mouth of the Red river. Pop. (1890) 7924; (1900) 9431, of whom 5094 were negroes; (1910 census) 8548. It is served by the Louisville & Nashville, and the Illinois Central railways, and by passenger and freight steamboat lines on the Cumberland river. The city hall, and the public library are among the principal public buildings, and the city is the seat of the Tennessee Odd Fellows’ home, and of the South-Western Presbyterian University, founded in 1875. Clarksville lies in the centre of the dark tobacco belt—commonly known as the “Black Patch”—and is an important tobacco market, with an annual trade in that staple of about $4,000,000, most of the product being exported to France, Italy, Austria and Spain. The city is situated in a region well adapted for the growing of wheat, Indian corn, and vegetables, and for the raising of live-stock; and Clarksville is a shipping point for the lumber—chiefly oak, poplar and birch—and the iron-ore of the surrounding country, a branch of the Louisville & Nashville railway extending into the iron district. The city’s principal manufactures are flour and grist mill products, chewing and smoking tobacco and snuff, furniture, lumber, iron, and pearl buttons. The value of the factory product in 1905 was $2,210,112, being 32% greater than in 1900. The municipality owns its water-works. Clarksville was first settled as early as 1780, was named in honour of General George Rogers Clark, and was chartered as a city in 1850.