Sir George Clerk of Pennycuik, 6th Baronet (19 November 1787 – 23 December 1867) was a Scottish politician who served as the

Tory A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. Th ...

MP for

Edinburghshire Midlothian (; gd, Meadhan Lodainn) is a historic county, registration county, lieutenancy area and one of 32 council areas of Scotland used for local government. Midlothian lies in the east-central Lowlands, bordering the City of Edinburgh ...

, Stamford and

Dover Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidstone ...

Background

Clerk was the son of Cpt. James Clerk (d.1793), third son of

Sir George Clerk-Maxwell, 4th Baronet Sir George Clerk Maxwell, 4th Baronet FRSE (1715–1784), of Penicuik (simply Clerk prior to his marriage), was a Scottish landowner who served as the Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer in Exchequer (1741), Commissioner of Customs (1763), a Trustee ...

and Janet Irving. He was born near

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

. He studied at the High School in Edinburgh and then went to the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, graduating DCL in 1810.

Political career

Clerk sat as

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

for

from 1811 to 1832 and again from 1835 to 1837, for Stamford from 1838 to 1847 and then for

from 1847 to 1852. He served as one of the Commissioners of Weights and Measures from 1818 to 1821. He held political office as a

Lord of the Admiralty This is a list of Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty (incomplete before the Restoration, 1660). The Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty were the members of The Board of Admiralty, which exercised the office of Lord High Admiral when it was n ...

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 This article lists past and present Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State serving the Home Secretary of the United Kingdom at the Home Office. Non-permanent and parliamentary under-secretaries, 1782–present *April 1782: Evan Nepean *April 17 ...

from 5 August to 22 November 1830, as

Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury is the official title of the most senior whip of the governing party in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Today, any official links between the Treasury and this office are nominal and the title ...

from November 1834 to April 1835, as

Financial Secretary to the Treasury The financial secretary to the Treasury is a mid-level ministerial post in HM Treasury, His Majesty's Treasury. It is nominally the fifth most significant ministerial role within the Treasury after the First Lord of the Treasury, first lord of th ...

from September 1841 to February 1845. In 1845 he was sworn of the

Privy Council A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a state, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the mon ...

and appointed

Vice-President of the Board of Trade The office of Vice-President of the Board of Trade is a junior ministerial position in the government of the United Kingdom at the Board of Trade. The office was created in 1786 but fell into abeyance in 1867. From 1848 onwards, the office was he ...

and

Master of the Mint Master of the Mint is a title within the Royal Mint given to the most senior person responsible for its operation. It was an important office in the governments of Scotland and England, and later Great Britain and then the United Kingdom, between ...

, posts he held until the fall of the Tory administration in 1846. He was also a Deputy Lieutenant for

Other positions of note

*President of the Zoological Society 1862-1867 *Chairman of the

Royal Academy of Music The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is the oldest conservatoire in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the first Duke of ...

Later life and death

In 1812 he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

, his proposers being

Thomas Charles Hope Thomas Charles Hope (21 July 1766 – 13 June 1844) was a British physician, chemist and lecturer. He proved the existence of the element strontium, and gave his name to Hope's Experiment, which shows that water reaches its maximum density at ...

, Sir George Stewart MacKenzie and

John Playfair John Playfair FRSE, FRS (10 March 1748 – 20 July 1819) was a Church of Scotland minister, remembered as a scientist and mathematician, and a professor of natural philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He is best known for his book ''Illu ...

. He was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society of London Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathematics ...

in 1819. Clerk died in December 1867, aged 80, at Penycuik House, Midlothian. He is buried in the local churchyard, close to his parents' mausoleum in St. Mungo's Churchyard in

Penicuik Penicuik ( ; sco, Penicuik; gd, Peighinn na Cuthaig) is a town and former burgh in Midlothian, Scotland, lying on the west bank of the River North Esk. It lies on the A701 midway between Edinburgh and Peebles, east of the Pentland Hills. Na ...

. His wife lies with him.

Family

Clerk married Maria Anne Law (1788-1866), the daughter of Ewan Law , brother of

Edward Law, 1st Baron Ellenborough Edward Law, 1st Baron Ellenborough, (16 November 1750 – 13 December 1818), was an English judge. After serving as a member of parliament and Attorney General, he became Lord Chief Justice. Early life Law was born at Great Salkeld, in Cum ...

, in 1810. His brother

John Clerk-Maxwell of Middlebie John Clerk (later Clerk Maxwell) of Middlebie (1790–1856) was a Scottish advocate and father of the mathematical physicist James Clerk Maxwell. Life He was born in Edinburgh on 10 November 1790, the son of Janet Irving and Captain James Clerk ...

, advocate, was father of the mathematical physicist

James Clerk-Maxwell James Clerk Maxwell (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish mathematician and scientist responsible for the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, which was the first theory to describe electricity, magnetism and ligh ...

. His sister Isabella married the sometime

Solicitor General for Scotland , body = , insignia = Crest of the Kingdom of Scotland.svg , insigniasize = 110px , image = File:Official Portrait of Ruth Charteris QC.png , incumbent = Ruth Charteris KC , incumbentsince = 22 June 2021 , department = Crown Office and ...

, James Wedderburn (1782–1822) of the

Wedderburn baronets The Wedderburn, later Ogilvy-Wedderburn Baronetcy, of Balindean in the County of Perth, is a title in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom created in 1803. Balindean The place-name associated with the baronetcy is Balindean; the place itself is ...

References

* Anderson, William, ''The Scottish Nation'', Edinburgh, 1867, vol.iii, p. 652.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Clerk, George 1787 births 1867 deaths People educated at the Royal High School, Edinburgh Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Scottish constituencies Baronets in the Baronetage of Nova Scotia Lords of the Admiralty Masters of the Mint Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom UK MPs 1807–1812 UK MPs 1812–1818 UK MPs 1818–1820 UK MPs 1820–1826 UK MPs 1826–1830 UK MPs 1830–1831 UK MPs 1831–1832 UK MPs 1835–1837 UK MPs 1837–1841 UK MPs 1841–1847 UK MPs 1847–1852 Presidents of the Zoological Society of London Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Dover Scottish Tory MPs (pre-1912)