George Sydenham Clarke, 1st Baron Sydenham of Combe, (4 July 1848 – 7 February 1933) was a

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

officer and colonial administrator. He later wrote antisemitic and racist pamphlets for the British far right, as well as at least one novel in 1891.

Biography

Background and education

Clarke was born in

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire ...

, and educated at Haileybury, Wimbledon and the

Royal Military Academy, Woolwich The Royal Military Academy (RMA) at Woolwich, in south-east London, was a British Army military academy for the training of commissioned officers of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers. It later also trained officers of the Royal Corps of Sig ...

Military career

Clarke entered the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...

in 1868, served in the Egyptian Expedition and as Assistant Political officer during the following Sudan expedition. From 1885 until 1892 Clarke was secretary to the Colonial Defence Committee, for which he was knighted as a

Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is a British order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George IV, Prince of Wales, while he was acting as prince regent for his father, King George III. It is named in honour ...

(KCMG) in 1893. He was also secretary to the Royal Commission on Navy and Army Administration in 1888, a commission which did much to improve cooperation between the two services. In the late 1890s he was Superintendent of the Royal Carriage Department at Woolwich.

Colonial administrator

Clarke retired from the army in October 1901, when he had been appointed

Governor of Victoria The governor of Victoria is the representative of the monarch, King Charles III, in the Australian state of Victoria. The governor is one of seven viceregal representatives in the country, analogous to the governors of the other states, and the ...

the previous month. He arrived in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

and took the oath of office on 11 December 1901, and served in Australia until 1903. He served in India as

Governor of Bombay Until the 18th century, Bombay consisted of seven islands separated by shallow sea. These seven islands were part of a larger archipelago in the Arabian sea, off the western coast of India. The date of city's founding is unclear—historians tr ...

between 1907 and 1913. A fine statue of him stands at the entrance to the Institute of Science College, located next to the Oval Maidan (Oval Park), South Bombay. In 1913 he was elevated to the peerage as Baron Sydenham of Combe, of

Dulverton Dulverton is a small town and civil parish in west Somerset, England, near the border with Devon. The town had a population of 1,408 at the 2011 United Kingdom census, 2011 Census. The parish includes the hamlets of Battleton and Ashwick which ...

in the County of Devon, named after one of the ancient seats of the ancient ''de Sydenham'' family which originated at the manor of

Sydenham Sydenham may refer to: Places Australia * Sydenham, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney ** Sydenham railway station, Sydney * Sydenham, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne ** Sydenham railway line, the name of the Sunbury railway line, Melbourne ...

, near

Bridgwater Bridgwater is a large historic market town and civil parish in Somerset, England. Its population currently stands at around 41,276 as of 2022. Bridgwater is at the edge of the Somerset Levels, in level and well-wooded country. The town lies alon ...

in Somerset. After his last term as governor he was a member of the committee that issued the

Esher Report The Esher Report of 1904, chaired by Reginald Brett, 2nd Viscount Esher, Lord Esher, recommended radical reform of the British Army, such as the creation of an Army Council (1904), Army Council, General Staff and Chief of the General Staff (United ...

. The biographer of the committee's chairman describes Clarke as "...an insensitive, clumsy, uncouth and infinitely boring man..". Clarke was also the first Secretary of the

Committee of Imperial Defence The Committee of Imperial Defence was an important ''ad hoc'' part of the Government of the United Kingdom and the British Empire from just after the Second Boer War until the start of the Second World War. It was responsible for research, and som ...

Fascism and antisemitism

Originally a Liberal, Clarke became increasingly radical in his later life; by the 1930s he was a prominent supporter of

fascist Fascism is a far-right, Authoritarianism, authoritarian, ultranationalism, ultra-nationalist political Political ideology, ideology and Political movement, movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and pol ...

and

antisemitic Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

causes. Clarke wrote antisemitic, racist and pro-fascist pieces, including a pamphlet of

antisemitic canard Antisemitic tropes, canards, or myths are " sensational reports, misrepresentations, or fabrications" that are defamatory towards Judaism as a religion or defamatory towards Jews as an ethnic or religious group. Since the Middle Ages, such repo ...

s called "The World Jewish Problem." He kept up an active correspondence with Adrian Arcand, the self-described "Canadian Führer"; Clarke quietly sent Arcand funds for translating the tract into French. Clarke's writings were published by

The Britons The Britons was an English anti-Semitic and anti-immigration organisation founded in July 1919 by Henry Hamilton Beamish. The organisation published pamphlets and propaganda under imprint names: Judaic Publishing Co. and later The Britons, and ...

, an antisemitic British Fascist organisation founded in 1919 by

Henry Hamilton Beamish Henry Hamilton Beamish (2 June 1873 – 27 March 1948) was a leading United Kingdom, British Antisemitism, antisemitic journalist and the founder of The Britons (organisation), The Britons in 1919, the first organisation set up in Britain for the ...

. According to historian

Sharman Kadish Sharman Kadish (born 1959) is a contemporary scholar, author, historian and preservationist. Biography Kadish was born in London, England, of Russian Jewish descent. Her father was the artist Norman Maurice Kadish. She was educated at Univers ...

, The Britons was "the most extreme group disseminating anti-Semitic propaganda in the early 1920s - indeed the first organisation set up in Britain for this express purpose."

Views on fortification

In 1892 Clarke published ''Fortification: Its Past Achievement, Recent Development and Future Progress''. The book was influential in shaping the British view of military fortification. Clarke adhered to the '

Blue Water Maritime geography is a collection of terms used by naval military units to loosely define three maritime regions: brown water, green water, and blue water. Definitions The elements of maritime geography are loosely defined and their meanings hav ...

' school of thought which saw the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

as Britain's primary defence against invasion. Large scale permanent fortifications built in peacetime (such as the

Palmerston Forts The Palmerston Forts are a group of forts and associated structures around the coasts of the United Kingdom and Ireland. The forts were built during the Victorian period on the recommendations of the 1860 Royal Commission on the Defence of the ...

) were seen as a waste of money. Instead Clarke advocated the use of small field fortifications which could be built cheaply and rapidly, such as those based on the

Twydall Profile The Twydall Profile was a style of fortification used in British and Imperial polygonal forts at the end of the 19th century. The sloping earthworks employed in the Twydall Profile were intended to be quick and inexpensive to construct and to be e ...

. His view was based in part on the successful defence of Plevna in 1877 by Turkish forces using magazine-fed rifles and earthwork fortifications. Also, in 1882 following the heavy bombardment of the forts at Alexandria by the

British Mediterranean Fleet The British Mediterranean Fleet, also known as the Mediterranean Station, was a formation of the Royal Navy. The Fleet was one of the most prestigious commands in the navy for the majority of its history, defending the vital sea link between t ...

, Clarke, as an engineer officer, had been given the task of assessing the damage to the forts. He found the bombardment had had very little effect on the earthwork defences with only 20 of the 300 guns having been dismounted. Returning from the Mediterranean, Clarke was appointed to a group of officers tasked with the planning of British coast defences overseas. Sydenham-Clarke's opinions on the strength of field fortifications were largely vindicated by the

trench warfare Trench warfare is a type of land warfare using occupied lines largely comprising military trenches, in which troops are well-protected from the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery. Trench warfare became a ...

of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

(1914–1918).

Fiction

In 1891 his book ''The Last Great Naval War. An historical retrospect. By A. Nelson Seaforth. Sixth thousand'' was published. The book was a fictional account of a war between Britain and France, set in 1930.https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:50_of_%27The_Last_Great_Naval_War._An_historical_retrospect._By_A._Nelson_Seaforth._Sixth_thousand%27_(11210309076).jpg The Last Great Naval War

Personal life

On 1 June 1871, he married Caroline Emily, eldest daughter of General Peregrine Henry Fellowes, RM. She died on 9 December 1908. Their only child, Constance Violet Clarke, was born 26 May 1879 and died 21 March 1909. He married, secondly, in 1910, to Phyllis Angelina Reynolds, daughter of George Morant of Shirley House, Carrickmacross. Lord Sydenham of Combe died at his home in Onslow Square, London, in February 1933, aged 84, when the barony became extinct. He was cremated at

Golders Green Crematorium Golders Green Crematorium and Mausoleum was the first crematorium to be opened in London, and one of the oldest crematoria in Britain. The land for the crematorium was purchased in 1900, costing £6,000 (the equivalent of £135,987 in 2021), ...

References

External links

* *
Sir George Sydenham Clarke
at the

Australian Dictionary of Biography The ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' (ADB or AuDB) is a national co-operative enterprise founded and maintained by the Australian National University (ANU) to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in Australia's ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sydenham Of Combe, George Clarke, 1st Baron 1848 births 1933 deaths Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom British Army personnel of the Anglo-Egyptian War British Army personnel of the Mahdist War Fellows of the Royal Society Governors of Victoria (Australia) People educated at Haileybury and Imperial Service College Governors of Bombay Graduates of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst Knights Grand Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire Knights Grand Commander of the Order of the Star of India Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire People educated at Rossall School Military personnel from Lincolnshire Royal Engineers officers English fascists Barons created by George V