Sir John Clerk of

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 ...

, 2nd Baronet (1676–1755) was a Scottish politician, lawyer, judge and composer. He was Vice-President of the

Philosophical 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 ...

, the pre-eminent

learned society A learned society (; also learned academy, scholarly society, or academic association) is an organization that exists to promote an discipline (academia), academic discipline, profession, or a group of related disciplines such as the arts and s ...

of the

Scottish Enlightenment The Scottish Enlightenment ( sco, Scots Enlichtenment, gd, Soillseachadh na h-Alba) was the period in 18th- and early-19th-century Scotland characterised by an outpouring of intellectual and scientific accomplishments. By the eighteenth century ...

. He was the father of George Clerk Maxwell and

John Clerk of Eldin John Clerk of Eldin FRSE FSAScot (10 December 1728 – 10 May 1812) was a Scottish merchant, naval author, artist, geologist and landowner. The 7th son of Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, Bt, Clerk of Eldin was a figure in the Scottish Enlightenm ...

, and the great-great-grandfather of the famous 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 ...

Early life

John Clerk was son of

Sir John Clerk, 1st Baronet Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, 1st Baronet (died 1722) was a Scottish politician, created a Baronet of Nova Scotia on 24 March 1679. Sir John was the eldest son of John Clerk of Penicuik and Mary, daughter of Sir William Gray of Pittendrum. From ...

by his first wife Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Henderson of Elvington. Burk
p. 257
/ref> He had a legal education first at

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

and then at

Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince o ...

. During 1697 and 1698 he went on a

Grand Tour The Grand Tour was the principally 17th- to early 19th-century custom of a traditional trip through Europe, with Italy as a key destination, undertaken by upper-class young European men of sufficient means and rank (typically accompanied by a tuto ...

and in 1700 was admitted to the

Scottish Bar The Faculty of Advocates is an independent body of lawyers who have been admitted to practise as advocates before the courts of Scotland, especially the Court of Session and the High Court of Justiciary. The Faculty of Advocates is a constitu ...

.Colvin
p. 257
/ref> Between 1700 and 1730 he planted 300,000 trees on the grounds of the family estate at

Penicuik House Penicuik House (alternative spellings in use until mid 19th century: ''Penycuik'', ''Pennycuik'') survives as the shell of a formerly grand estate house in Penicuik, Midlothian, Scotland. The 18th-century palladian mansion (at ) was built on the ...

Parliament

He was a member of the

Parliament of Scotland The Parliament of Scotland ( sco, Pairlament o Scotland; gd, Pàrlamaid na h-Alba) was the legislature of the Kingdom of Scotland from the 13th century until 1707. The parliament evolved during the early 13th century from the king's council o ...

for

Whithorn Whithorn ( �ʍɪthorn 'HWIT-horn'; ''Taigh Mhàrtainn'' in Gaelic), is a royal burgh in the historic county of Wigtownshire in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, about south of Wigtown. The town was the location of the first recorded Christian ...

from 1702 to 1707, and a Commissioner for the Union of Parliaments for the Whig Party: he sat in the first

Parliament of Great Britain The Parliament of Great Britain was formed in May 1707 following the ratification of the Acts of Union by both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. The Acts ratified the treaty of Union which created a new unified Kingdo ...

in 1707. He was appointed a

Baron of the Exchequer The Barons of the Exchequer, or ''barones scaccarii'', were the judges of the English court known as the Exchequer of Pleas. The Barons consisted of a Chief Baron of the Exchequer and several puisne (''inferior'') barons. When Robert Shute was a ...

for Scotland on the constitution of the Exchequer Court, 13 May 1708, a position he held for nearly half a century. With Baron Scrope, in 1726, he drew up an ''Historical View of the Forms and Powers of the Court of Exchequer in Scotland'', which was printed at the expense of the Barons of Exchequer for private circulation. A leading supporter of the

Act of Union 1707 The Acts of Union ( gd, Achd an Aonaidh) were two Acts of Parliament: the Union with Scotland Act 1706 passed by the Parliament of England, and the Union with England Act 1707 passed by the Parliament of Scotland. They put into effect the te ...

with the

Kingdom of England The Kingdom of England (, ) was a sovereign state on the island of Great Britain from 12 July 927, when it emerged from various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, until 1 May 1707, when it united with Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. On 1 ...

, Clerk wrote in his memoirs of English novelist, journalist and secret agent

Daniel Defoe Daniel Defoe (; born Daniel Foe; – 24 April 1731) was an English writer, trader, journalist, pamphleteer and spy. He is most famous for his novel ''Robinson Crusoe'', published in 1719, which is claimed to be second only to the Bible in its ...

that it was not known at the time that Defoe had been sent by Godolphin : "... to give a faithful account to him from time to time how everything past here. He was therefor a spy among us, but not known to be such, otherways the Mob of Edin. had pull him to pieces".In a side-note at this point Clerk recommends Defoe's ''History of the Union of Great Britain'' : "This History of the Union deserves to be read. It was published in folio. There is not one fact in it which I can challenge"

Antiquarian leanings

Of his other treatises, Clerk wrote papers in the ''Philosophical Transactions'': one an ''Account of the Stylus of the Ancients and their different sorts of Paper'', printed in 1731, and the others ''On the effects of Thunder on Trees'' and ''Of a large Deer's Horns found in the heart of an Oak'', printed in 1739. He was the author of a tract entitled ''Dissertatio de quibusdam Monumentis Romanis &c'', written in 1730 but not published until 1750. For upwards of twenty years he also carried on a learned correspondence with Roger Gale, the English

antiquary An antiquarian or antiquary () is an fan (person), aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient artifact (archaeology), artifac ...

, which forms a portion of the ''Reliquiae Britannica'' of 1782.

Patron of the arts

Sir John Clerk was one of the friends and patrons of the poet Allan Ramsay who, during his latter years, spent much of his time at

. His son, Sir James Clerk, erected at the family seat an

obelisk An obelisk (; from grc, ὀβελίσκος ; diminutive of ''obelos'', " spit, nail, pointed pillar") is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape or pyramidion at the top. Originally constructed by Anc ...

to Ramsay's memory. Sir John was a patron to various other artists and architects, and even dabbled in

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

himself.

Musical talent

Clerk had a musical bent also, and while in Rome may have been

tutor TUTOR, also known as PLATO Author Language, is a programming language developed for use on the PLATO system at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign beginning in roughly 1965. TUTOR was initially designed by Paul Tenczar for use in co ...

ed by the

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

composer

Arcangelo Corelli Arcangelo Corelli (, also , , ; 17 February 1653 – 8 January 1713) was an Italian composer and violinist of the Baroque era. His music was key in the development of the modern genres of sonata and concerto, in establishing the preeminence of ...

, but his own work has often been overlooked, primarily since the only record of his composition seems to be his own papers. One of his humorous songs was ''O merry may the maid be that marries the miller''.

Family

Sir John succeeded his father in his title and estates in 1722. He unsuccessfully courted Susanna, daughter of Sir Archibald Kennedy of Culzean, Baronet (ancestor of the

Marquess of Ailsa Marquess of Ailsa, of the Isle of Ailsa in the County of Ayr, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 10 September 1831 for Archibald Kennedy, 12th Earl of Cassilis. The title Earl of Cassilis (pronounced "Cassels") ...

) and that correspondence is in the National Archives. She became the third wife of Alexander, 9th Earl of Eglinton. He married, firstly, on 23 February 1701, Lady Margaret, eldest daughter of

Alexander Stewart, 3rd Earl of Galloway Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...

who died in childbirth on 26 December that year. Her son, John, survived, but died unmarried in 1722. Sir John married again, to Janet, daughter of Sir John Inglis of Cramond, by whom he had seven sons and six daughters. He died at Penicuik House on 4 October 1755.Wilson, p. 156

Notes

;Footnotes ;Citations

References

* Allsop, Peter (1999). ''Arcangelo Corelli: new Orpheus of our times Oxford monographs on music'', Oxford University Press, , *Anderson, William (1867), ''The Scottish Nation'', Edinburgh, Vol. III, p. 653-4. *Backscheider, Paula R. (1989). ''Daniel Defoe: his life'', Johns Hopkins University Press, , *John Burke (1832) ''A General and heraldic dictionary of the peerage and baronetage of the British Empire'', Volume 1, H. Colburn and R. Bentley. *Colvin, Howard (2008). ''A biographical dictionary of British architects, 1600-1840'', Edition 4, Yale University Press, , . Clerk, Sir John (1676–1755), pp. 257–259. *Trevelyan, George Macaulay (1946).''England under Queen Anne'', Volume 2, Longmans, Green and Co. *Wilson, John James (1891). ''The annals of Penicuik: being a history of the parish and of the village'', Priv. Print. by T.& A. Constable,
The Clerk FamilyPenicuik House Project
Retrieved 9 December 2009. ;Attribution

External links

* Digitised scores of his musical works can be viewed through th
Five Centuries of Scottish Music
collection hosted b

* A recording of his cantatas is available fro
Hyperion
{{DEFAULTSORT:Clerk, John 1676 births 1755 deaths People from Midlothian Baronets in the Baronetage of Nova Scotia Scottish Baroque composers Scottish classical composers British male classical composers Barons of the Court of Exchequer (Scotland) Burgh Commissioners to the Parliament of Scotland Members of the Parliament of Scotland 1702–1707 Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for Scottish constituencies Whig (British political party) MPs for Scottish constituencies Alumni of the University of Glasgow Leiden University alumni Members of the Faculty of Advocates Politics of Dumfries and Galloway People associated with Dumfries and Galloway Scottish legal writers Scottish unionists Members of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh Fellows of the Royal Society British MPs 1707–1708 18th-century classical composers 18th-century male musicians 18th-century Scottish musicians