Background
Clerk was the son of Cpt James Clerk (d1793), third son of Sir George Clerk-Maxwell, 4th Baronet and Janet Irving. He was born near Edinburgh.
Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom
Clerk was the son of Cpt James Clerk (d1793), third son of Sir George Clerk-Maxwell, 4th Baronet and Janet Irving. He was born near Edinburgh.
He studied at the High School in Edinburgh and then went to Oxford University, graduating Data Control Language in 1810.
He served as one of the Commissioners of Weights and Measures from 1818 to 1821. In 1845 he was sworn of the Privy Council and appointed Vice-President of the Board of Trade and Master of the Mint, posts he held until the fall of the Tory administration in 1846. He was also a Deputy Lieutenant for Edinburghshire.
President of the Zoological Society 1862-1867
Chairman of the Royal Academy of Music
Later In 1812 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, his proposers being Thomas Charles Hope, Sir George Stewart MacKenzie and John Playfair.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1819. He died at Penicuik House, his family home, on 23 December 1867.
He is buried in the local churchyard in Penicuik. Clerk married Maria Anne Law (1788-1866), the daughter of Ewan Law, brother of Edward Law, 1st Baron Ellenborough, in 1810.
He died in December 1867, aged 80, at Penycuik House, Midlothian.
Royal Society; 4th United Kingdom Parliament. 5th United Kingdom Parliament. 6th United Kingdom Parliament.
7th United Kingdom Parliament.
8th United Kingdom Parliament. 9th United Kingdom Parliament.
10th United Kingdom Parliament. 12th United Kingdom Parliament.
13th United Kingdom Parliament.
14th United Kingdom Parliament. 15th United Kingdom Parliament]
Clerk sat as Member of Parliament for Edinburghshire from 1811 to 1832 and again from 1835 to 1837, for Stamford from 1838 to 1847 and then for Dover from 1847 to 1852. He held political office as a Lord of the Admiralty from 1819 to 1830 (from 1827 to 1828 he was a member of the Council of the Lord High Admiral (The Duke of Clarence), as Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department from 5 August to 22 November 1830, as Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury from November 1834 to April 1835, as Financial Secretary to the Treasury from September 1841 to February 1845.