Edward Daniel Clarke

Edward Daniel Clarke (5 June 17699 March 1822) was an English clergyman, naturalist, mineralogist, and traveller.

Life

Edward Daniel Clarke was born at Willingdon, Sussex, and educated first at Uckfield School"Anthony Saunders, D.D." in Mark Antony Lower, ''The Worthies of Sussex'' (1865), p. 63: "In fact, Uckfield school enjoyed considerable celebrity. During the mastership of the Rev. Robert Gerison, Dr. James Stanier Clarke, and his brother Edward Daniel Clarke, the well-known traveller, received their rudimentary education there..." and then at Tonbridge.

In 1786 he obtained the office of chapel clerk at Jesus College, Cambridge, but the loss of his father at this time involved him in difficulties. In 1790 he took his degree, and soon after became 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. While in Naples, Clarke climbed Vesuvius on numerous occasions, to take guests to the summit and observe the state of activity of the volcano. He also constructed a model of Vesuvius, which Sir William Hamilton declared to be the 'best ever produced'. This model was later transported to Lord Berwick's seat at Attingham Park.

Having returned to England in the summer of 1794, he became a tutor to several distinguished families. In 1799 he set out with John Marten 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 helped to secure for England a number of statues, sarcophagi, maps, manuscripts and other antiquities which had been collected by French savants in the city.

Greece was the next country they visited. From Athens, the travellers 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 LL.D. shortly after his return in 1803, on account of the valuable donations, including a colossal statue of the Eleusinian Ceres, which he had made to 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 newly created Professorship of mineralogy in Cambridge. His perseverance as a traveller and collector was also rewarded financially: 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, made several discoveries in chemistry, 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. He died in London on 9 March 1822.

Selected works

*''Testimony of Authors respecting the Colossal Statue of Ceres in the Public Library, Cambridge'' (8vo, 1801–1803)
*''The Tomb of Alexander, a Dissertation on the Sarcophagus brought from Alexandria, and now in the British Museum'' (4to, 1805)
*''A Methodical Distribution of the Mineral Kingdom'' (fol., Lewes, 1807)
*''A Description of the Greek Marbles brought from the Shores of the Euxine, Archipelago and Mediterranean, and deposited in the University Library, Cambridge'' (8vo, 1809)
*''Travels in various Countries of Europe, Asia and Africa'' (4to, 1810–1819; 2nd ed., 1811–1823
4th ed., 1817–1824

*''The gas blow-pipe, or art of fusion, by burning the gaseous constituents of water'' (1819)
*''Travels in Various Countries of Scandinavia Including Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Lapland and Finland'' (Travels in various Countries of Europe, Asia and Africa. Part The Third, SCANDINAVIA, Section The Second) MDCCCXXIII (1823
Travels in Various Countries of Scandinavia

Family

In 1806, Clarke married Angelica, fifth daughter of Sir William Beaumaris Rush.

See also

* Timeline of hydrogen technologies

References

Attribution:
*

External links

*
*
Excerpt from Clarke's Travels
giving his account of the removal of the Parthenon sculptures

{{DEFAULTSORT:Clarke, Edward Daniel
1769 births
1822 deaths
People from Willingdon
English mineralogists
Alumni of Jesus College, Cambridge
Cambridge University Librarians
English naturalists
Professors of Mineralogy (Cambridge)
People educated at Uckfield School