Edward Clarke

Sir Edward Clarke (died 1703), of Brickendon, Hertfordshire, was an English merchant who served as Lord Mayor of London in the year 1696 to 1697.

Clarke was born at Heighington, Lincolnshire, the son of Thomas Clarke, yeoman of Heighington. In 1645 he was apprenticed to his uncle, George Clarke, a mercer of Cheapside, and became a successful merchant. His first wife was Elizabeth Gough, daughter of Rev. Thomas Gough, a Puritan clergyman, of St Sepulchre. Before 1672, he married, as his second wife, Jane Clutterbuck, daughter of Richard Clutterbuck. He was a member of the Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors and in 1675, he became a Common Councillor for the City of London ward of Farringdon Within. In 1677, he was a silkman, and merchant in partnership with Henry Sherbrooke. The manor was ‘considered “one of the delightful seats of this neighbourhood, having to the front a dry pleasant soil towards Hertford, and on the contrary view woods at half a mile distance, with vistas all pointing to the House’ Clarke was probably responsible for the earliest and most imposing part of the mansion.

Clarke was Deputy from 1682 to 1683 and in 1688 and 1689. He was elected Alderman for Bread Street ward on 1 October 1689, and was knighted on 29 October 1689.