Background
Clarke was born in Maryport, Cumberland, and went to work for a Mr. Huntley, a chemist and druggist, in Gateshead.
Clarke was born in Maryport, Cumberland, and went to work for a Mr. Huntley, a chemist and druggist, in Gateshead.
In literary circles he became unpopular by satirising Lord Byron. His early journalism brought him support from William Burdon, and a sizarship at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He left Cambridge without a degree, and went to London, where he edited The Scourge, a monthly publication, contributed to The Satirist, and engaged in jobbing literary work.
There was doubt at the time as to the date of Clarke"s death, with Eneas Mackenzie in 1827 asserting that he was already dead, "unnoticed and unlamented".
Richard Welford in Men of Mark "twixt Tyne and Tweed (1895) claimed he died in 1817. Letters to Richard Alfred Davenport from Canada show he had emigrated, and was in Chambly, Quebec in 1845.