John Clarke

John Clarke (1682–1757) was an English natural philosopher and Dean of Salisbury from 1728 to his death in 1757.

Life He was a younger brother of Samuel Clarke, and was born at Norwich, his father being Edward Clarke, textile manufacturer and alderman (M.P. for Norwich 1701), who married Hannah, daughter of Samuel Parmeter. After grammar studies for six years under Mr. Nobbs at Norwich School, he was admitted a scholar of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, some time between Michaelmas 1699 and Michaelmas 1700. He graduated B.A. in 1703, M.A. in 1707, and had D.D. by royal command in 1717.

He was known as a mathematician, and lived much of his life at Cambridge. He held a prebend at Norwich, was a royal chaplain, and canon of Canterbury (1721). On 16 March 1728 he was instituted to the deanery of Salisbury. He died at Salisbury on 10 February 1757, and was buried in the cathedral, where a monument was erected to his memory by his daughters. The younger John Clarke engaged in controversy with Joseph Clarke, an opponent of the views of his uncle Samuel Clarke. William Cole described John Clarke the younger as a lecturer in natural philosophy, and supplied details of his engagement to a French woman in exile.

Descendants Charles Poulett Thomson, 1st Baron Sydenham and George Julius Poulett Scrope, sons of Charlotte Thomson née Jacob, Clarke's granddaughter.

Works His own works include: An Enquiry into the Cause and Origin of Evil 1720, 2 vols. (the Boyle lecture for 1719; reproduced in vol. iii. of the abridgement of the Boyle lectures, 1739). A Demonstration of some of the principal sections of Sir Isaac Newton's Principles of Natural Philosophy, 1730. and English translations (made some years earlier for the use of Queen Caroline) of the extensive Hebrew, Greek, and Latin quotations in the book's notes.