# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Clarke, Alured (1745?-1832)

1904 Errata appended.
​CLARKE, Sir ALURED (1745?–1832), field-marshal, was probably son of Charles Clarke, baron of the exchequer [q. v.], by his second wife, and nephew of Alured Clarke, dean of Exeter [q. v.] (Gent. Mag. lxii. 1221). He was born about 1745. No particulars of his boyhood have been found; but he obtained an ensigncy in the 50th foot in 1759, and became lieutenant the year after in that regiment, with which he served in Germany under Lord Granby. He became captain in the 5th foot in 1767—that fine old regiment being at the time in Ireland. He became major in the 54th in 1771, and lieutenant-colonel in 1775, proceeding with that regiment from Ireland to New York, with General Howe, in the spring of 1776. In March 1777 he exchanged to the command of the 7th fusiliers, then lately transferred from Canada to New York, and commanded that regiment until he was appointed muster-master-general of the Hessian troops, in succession to John Burgoyne (see ‘Haldimand Papers’ in Add. MSS.) There are very few details of Clarke's services about this time; ​but it appears from the ‘Historical Manuscripts Commission’ (8th Rep. p. 287 et seq.), that a large number of his letters are among the Cornwallis Papers in possession of Lord Braybrooke's family. He was lieutenant-governor of the island of Jamaica from 1782 to 1790, and acted as governor in 1789. Clarke's name appears as lieutenant-colonel of the 7th fusiliers up to 8 July 1791, when he was promoted to the colonelcy of the 1st battalion 60th foot. He had meanwhile been advanced to the rank of major-general, and appointed to the staff at Quebec, where he was stationed from June 1791 to June 1793. In a letter of this period in the ‘Haldimand Papers’ Clarke expresses regret that he had not been able to pass the winter with friends in England, ‘after an absence from home of fifteen years.’ On 5 Aug. 1794 he was transferred to the colonelcy of the 68th foot, then at Gibraltar, and on 25 Oct. following to his old corps, the 5th foot. In the following year he was despatched, in command of reinforcements, to India. By preconcerted arrangement these troops were to co-operate with a naval force under Vice-admiral Elphinstone, afterwards Lord Keith, in an attack on the Dutch settlements at the Cape of Good Hope. Admiral Elphinstone arrived in Simon's Bay in July 1795, and had been engaged in operations against the enemy from that time up to 3 Sept., when the arrival of the reinforcements under Clarke changed the face of affairs. Additional troops were landed, and on 14 Sept. the British force commenced its march to Cape Town, and on the 16th the colony capitulated, whereby the rule of the Dutch East India Company in South Africa was determined, a change which, a Colonial-Dutch writer (Judge Watermeyer) has observed, benefited every man of every hue throughout the colony (Noble, History of the Cape, p. 20). Some weeks were spent with the admiral, concocting measures for the administration of the new colony, a somewhat difficult task (Allardyce, Life of Keith), and then Clarke took his reinforcements on to Bengal, where he served from that time (from 30 April 1797 as presidency commander-in-chief and senior member of the council) up to 17 May 1798, when he succeeded Sir Robert Abercromby [q. v.] as commander-in-chief in India. He commanded the army which accompanied Sir John Shore, afterwards Lord Teignmouth, to Lucknow, and which deposed the nabob Vizir Ali and placed Saadut Ali on the throne of Oude. Clarke, who had been made K.B., held the post of commander-in-chief under the Marquis Wellesley up to 21 July 1801, when he arrived home, having left Fort William at the end of April. Notices of his services and opinions in India occur incidentally in the letters of Sir John Shore, in the published despatches and correspondence of the Marquis Wellesley, in the ‘Mornington Papers,’ in the ‘British Museum Add. MSS.’—where there is a volume of letters from him to the Marquis Wellesley, with whom the general, a soldier of courtly old-fashioned type, appears to have been on cordial terms—and in Clarke's evidence before the parliamentary inquiry into the conduct of Lord Wellesley in 1806. On 23 Aug. 1801 Clarke was transferred to the colonelcy of the 7th fusiliers. He was afterwards a member of the consolidated board of general officers. On the accession of William IV, Clarke and Sir Samuel Hulse, as the two oldest generals in the army, were made field marshals. Clarke died at Llangollen vicarage, where he was on a visit to his niece, Mrs. Eyton, wife of the incumbent, on 16 Sept. 1832, at the age of eighty-seven.
[Army Lists; Allardyce's Life of Keith (Edinburgh, 1882); Miles and Dodswell's Indian Army Lists; Mill's Hist. of India, vi. 50–255; Asiatic Annual Register, 1808; Haldimand and Mornington Papers in Add. MSS., under ‘Clarke, Alured;’ Cathcart, Northumberland and Braybrooke Papers in Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports, ii. 29–30 (?), iii. 125, and viii. 287, &c. The biographical notices of Sir A. Clarke in Phillipart's Royal Mil. Calendars, in Cannon's Hist. Records Brit. Army, and in Gent. Mag. cii. pt. ii. 474, 662, are very meagre and incomplete.]
H. M. C.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.67 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| | ii | 10-9 f.e. | Clarke, Charles (d. 1750): for In the new parliament of 1741 read In Jan. 1742-3 |
| | | 8 f.e. | omit in its second session |
| | | 7 f.e. | before Hilary term insert the following |
| 424 | i | 8 f.e. | Clarke, George (1660-1736): for 1660 read 1661 |
| | | 7 f.e. | after virtuoso insert born 7 May 1661 |
| | ii | 34 | after he insert was M.P. for Winchester 1702-5 and |
| | | 15 f.e. | after but insert was M.P. for Launceston 1711-13 |
| 425 | i | 12 | for 1684 read 1681 |
| | | 13 | for from 1692 read in Ireland 1690-2 and in England 1692-3 |
| | | 22 | after held it insert (1710-14) |
| | | 18 f.e. | after group insert by Giovanni da Bologna |
| | | 16 f.e. | after until insert it was sold for old lead |
| 430 | i | 23 | Clarke, James S.: for to the king read and royal chaplain from 1816 |
| 433 | i | 33 | Clarke, John (1687-1734): Note that the work numbered 10—'Formulæ oratoriæ,' &c. is not by the subject of this article. Through the greater part of the seventeenth century this work was a very popular school book, being originally published before 1632, in which year it reached a fourth edition, and being often reissued (e.g. in London in 1637 and 1670, and at Zurich in 1694). Its author was John Clarke, B.D. (of Fiskerton, Lincolnshire). |
| 435 | ii | 22 | Clarke, Joseph: before 1776 insert 1742, second edition |
| 437 | ii | 16 | Clarke, Mary A.: omit J. Wilson Croker |
| 449 | ii | 17 | Clarke, William (1696-1771): for Haghmon read Haughmond |
| | | 33 | for 1738 read 1727 and after prebendary and insert in 1738 canon |
| | | 40 | for Chittingley read Chiddingly |