Edward Daniel Clarke was an English clergyman, naturalist, mineralogist, and traveller. He specialized in mineralogy and became a Doctor of the University of Cambridge.
Background
Clarke was born on June 5, 1769, in Willingdon, England, the second of a family of three sons and one daughter. His father, Edward, was the son of “mild” William Clarke, a fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge, prebendary of Chichester Cathedral, and a distinguished antiquary. His mother, Anne, was the daughter of Thomas Grenfield of Guildford, Surrey. Edward, Sr., also a fellow of St. John’s, published a statistical account of Spain in 1763 and, after service as a chaplain in Madrid and Minorca, settled down to a quiet literary life in his Sussex parish.
Education
Clarke was educated at Tonbridge School, Kent, from 1779 until he entered Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1786. Immediately after taking an undistinguished Bachelor of Arts in 1790, he began the first of several tutorships to sons of the nobility, some of which enabled him to travel extensively.
Career
Soon after taking his degree in 1790, Clarke became a private tutor to Henry Tufton, nephew of the Duke of Dorset. In 1792 he obtained an engagement to travel with Lord Berwick through Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. After crossing the Alps, and visiting a few of the principal cities of Italy, including Rome, he went to Naples, where he remained nearly two years.
Having returned to England in the summer of 1794, he became a tutor in several distinguished families. In 1799 he set out with a Mr. Cripps on a tour through the continent of Europe, beginning with Norway and Sweden, whence they proceeded through Russia and the Crimea to Constantinople, Rhodes, and afterwards to Egypt and Palestine. After the capitulation of Alexandria, Clarke was of considerable use in securing for England the statues, sarcophagi, maps, manuscripts, etc., which had been collected by the French savants.
Greece was the next country he visited. From Athens, the travelers proceeded by land to Constantinople, and after a short stay in that city directed their course homewards through Rumelia, Austria, Germany, and France. Clarke, who had now obtained considerable reputation, took up his residence at Cambridge.
He received the degree of Legum Doctor shortly after his return in 1803, on account of the valuable donations, including a colossal statue of the Eleusinian Ceres, which he had made for the university. He was also presented to the college living of Harlton, near Cambridge, in 1805, to which, four years later, his father-in-law added that of Yeldham. Towards the end of 1808, Dr. Clarke was appointed to the professorship of mineralogy in Cambridge, then first instituted.
His perseverance as a traveller was rewarded. The manuscripts which he had collected in the course of his travels, among them the celebrated Clarke Codex of Plato's dialogues (895 CE), were sold to the Bodleian library for £1000. And by the publication of his travels he realized altogether a clear profit of £6595.
Besides lecturing on mineralogy and discharging his clerical duties, Dr. Clarke eagerly prosecuted the study of chemistry, and made several discoveries, principally by means of the gas blow-pipe, which he had brought to a high degree of perfection. He was also appointed university librarian in 1817 and was one of the founders of the Cambridge Philosophical Society in 1819.
