Sir Ernest Clarke (21 February 1856 – 4 March 1923) was an English medical clerk for public health, historian of agriculture, Secretary of the Royal Agricultural Society, antiquarian, folklorist, bibliographer, author, editor, and scholar of folk songs. After education at

King Edward VI School, Bury St Edmunds King Edward VI School is a co-educational comprehensive secondary school in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England. The school in its present form was created in 1972 by the merging of King Edward VI Grammar School, with the Silver Jubilee Girls Sch ...

, Ernest Clarke was a salaried clerk in the medical department of the

Local Government Board The Local Government Board (LGB) was a British Government supervisory body overseeing local administration in England and Wales from 1871 to 1919. The LGB was created by the Local Government Board Act 1871 (C. 70) and took over the public health a ...

from 1872 to 1881. From 1881 to 1887 he was Assistant Secretary, Share and Loan Department,

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St P ...

. From 1887 to 1905 he was Secretary of the Royal Agricultural Society. Clarke wrote 38 articles for the '' Dictionary of National Biography'' and several articles for its first and second supplements. He also wrote for '' The Nineteenthy Century'' and other journals. He was the author of ''History of the Board of agriculture, 1793-1822'' (published in 1898) and the editor of a new edition of ''The Chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond'' in 1903 and a 3rd edition in 1907. During the 1880s he was a valued adviser and co-editor assisting Ernest Hart, the editor-in-chief of the British Medical Journal. Clarke received in 1894 an honorary M.A. from St John's College, Cambridge. In the early 1890s he was a lecturer under Professor

John Wrightson Professor John Wrightson Chemical Society, FCS, Royal Agricultural University, MRAC (1840 – 30 November 1916) was a British agriculturalist and the founder of Downton Agricultural College (1880–1906) at Downton, Wiltshire, Downton in Wilts ...

Downton Agricultural College Professor John Wrightson FCS, MRAC (1840 – 30 November 1916) was a British agriculturalist and the founder of Downton Agricultural College (1880–1906) at Downton in Wiltshire. In 1890 he reputedly became the first person in Britain to ...

. At Cambridge, he was a university lecturer on agricultural history from 1896 to 1899 (and was also the University of Cambridge's first such lecturer). At Cambridge he was also the Gilbey Lecturer in History and Economics of Agriculture from 1897 to 1901. He was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) is an established statistical society. It has three main roles: a British learned society for statistics, a professional body for statisticians and a charity which promotes statistics for the public good. ...

in 1882. He was knighted in 1898 and was made ''Chevalier de l'ordre du Mérite agricole'' in 1889. He was made an honorary member of several foreign agricultural societies.

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* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Clarke, Ernest 1856 births 1923 deaths Historians of agriculture People educated at King Edward VI School, Bury St Edmunds Knights Bachelor