Author: Clarke, Richard
Biography:
CLARKE, Richard (1723-1802: ancestry.co.uk)
The son of Henry Clarke, a solicitor, and his wife Petronella Deverol, he was born in Winchester, Hampshire, on 25 Mar. 1723 and baptised in St. Thomas’s church there on 2 May. He matriculated at University College, Oxford, on 17 Dec. 1741; although he did not proceed to a degree, he was ordained deacon in 1746 and priest in 1750. Clarke married Eunice Rayner in about 1749; they had two children who both died young. He was serving as a lecturer and curate at St. Nicholas Cole Abbey church in London when he was recruited by the Society for the Preservation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts to serve at St. Philip’s church in Charleston SC; the family travelled there in 1754. It is not known exactly when Eunice died but Clarke subsequently married Mary Roberts and with her had two children who also died young. Clarke was popular with the congregation of St. Philip’s and highly regarded as a preacher. Increasingly, however, he tended to espouse unorthodox views and was interested to the point of obsession in Universalism, numerology, and apocalyptic beliefs. He resigned from St. Philip’s in Feb. 1759 and returned to England. There on 17 Feb. 1762 he was married for the third time, to Susannah Crocket, a widow whose birth surname was Tredway. They had two children before Susannah’s death in 1764. From 1771 to 1786 Clarke was rector in the parish of Hartley in Kent. In financial distress in April 1798 he appealed to the RLF and was awarded 5 guineas. He died suddenly on 31 July 1802; death notices do not give a location. Clarke’s publications are numerous and, in addition to his two books with verse, include An Essay on the Number Seven (1750), A Spiritual Voice to the Christian Church (1760), A Voice of Glad Tidings to Jews and Gentiles (1763), Real Scriptural Predestination (1772), An Account of Books Published…1760 to 1795 (1795), and many more. (ancestry.co.uk 4 Jan. 2024; Alumni Oxonienses; CCEd 4 Jan. 2024; Richard Eddy, Universalism in America [1884]; Dorothy Middleton Anderson and Margaret Middleton Rivers Eastman, St. Philip’s Church of Charleston [2015]; Ashworth P. Burke, Family Records [1897]); RLF file 64) SR
Other Names:
- R. Clarke