The "Hamlet Clarks"

HAMLETT CLARKE born 1692 in Keyham, Leicester, christened at Syston on the 24th April 1692. - no date of death, but he married Grace Peake on the 3rd of May 1713 at Keyham in Leicester. This information is fairly unsubstantiated at present. He is the father of the Hamlet immediately below.
Syston Parish Registers - Christening Hamlet Clark - 24 April 1692 - Father Edmend Clark Mother Mary. Hope this may be of some use (from Rootschat - this info is the only information occurs frequently)
 
HAMLET CLARK born 1714 IN St Nicholas, Leicester, died 29th of May 1772.
The records at Leicester say that he was an Alderman of the city.
He married Elizabeth Smith on the 31st of July 1735 at Mowsley in Leicester.

They had 10 children. The Hamlet below was the eldest son, His younger brother Henry Clark(1753 - 1834) became the Vicar of Harmston

The the other 7 children were all girls, Henry's twin William, did not survive infancy.

Record of marriage of Hamblet and Elizabeth Smith in the parish register of Mowsley

HAMLET CLARK, (Maltster). born 21 November 1744, died 17th February 1817

married Elizabeth Johnson daughter of Alderman Joseph Johnson

This is the excerpt from the Leicester Council website:

1786 1796, 1803 HAMLET CLARK

1786 1796, 1803    HAMLET CLARK, (Maltster). (3)

(358)

Eldest surviving son of AIderman Hamlet Clark of Leicester.; was born 21st of November 1744 and baptized at St. Nicholas' 30 November 1744, admitted a freeman 19 September 1767, later entering public life as a member of the corporation. He resided in Shambles Lane now St. Nicholas' Street, was one of the borough chamberlains 1775 and again mayor 1796 and 1803; married Elizabeth, second daughter of AIderman. Joseph Johnson of Leicester, but by her, who died in 1838, he does not appear to have had any family.

Mr. AIderman Clark, the senior member of the corporation, died 17 February 1817, aged seventy-two, and was buried in St. Nicholas' church. Monument inscribed to him and wife there. His will was proved in the P.C.C., London, shortly after his death.

      

Screenshot fom 1803

Continuation of the above

Hamlet Clark (1823 -1867)

Hamlet Clark's Coat of Arms

The majority of this information has been taken from an article published in in the USA by C.L. Staines in 2002. It is available on the internet. I take no credit for the research and I know that it is probably correct - Thank you Mr Staines. I feel that this information was taken from an earlier source (The information summarized below was taken from the obituaries of Clark (Anonymous 1867; Newman 1867a, b, c; and Clark's articles 14 and 35). 

Hamlet Clark was born 30 March 1823 in Navenby, Lincolnshire, England. He was the eldest son of Rev. Henry Clark, Vicar of Harmston, Lincoln. He attended Beverly Grammar School and then studied with the Rev. Mr. Scott where he first became inter- ested in natural history. Clark was a sick child and as a result he was unable to participate in many activities. Clark attended Corpus Christi College at Cambridge University and was a student with the the Coleopterist T Vernon Wollaston (Jesus College). Cambridge at this time did not offer much formal training in natural history, but Clark read much natural history and purchased many natural history specimens from residents in the Cambridge area. Clark's early natural history interests were birds, spiders, and Lepidoptera. He devoted the last ten years of his life to the study of Coleoptera, especially water beetles and leaf beetles.

Edward Newman, who wrote Clark's obituary in EMM, 4, 1867, pp.43-44, recorded that he

was 'Indefatigable in collecting, possessed of an earnest love for Entomology, and uniting an

innate rapidity of perception to a capability of unwearied application ... [he] will long be remembered as one of that band of pioneers which cleared a starting point for us out of the

confusion of older authors; and it is by his labours in the Hydradephaga, Phytophaga and certain groups of the Rhyncophora that the Coleopterists of this country have chiefly benefitted. His works on exotic Phytophaga and Hydradephaga have procured for him a universal reputation'. 

Clark's interest in entomology developed while he was in his teens and he published his first article 'Captures near Towcester' in Ent., 1, 1842, pp.409-410. This was followed by notes of further interesting captures in Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire and at Whittlesea Mere, and in 1855 by his 'Synonymic list of the British carnivorous water beetles, together with critical remarks and notices of foreign allied species' (Zoo., 14, pp.4846-4869). 'A synonymic list of the British species of Philhydrida' followed in the same periodical in the following year and at this time he also collaborated with J.F. Dawson on a re-arrangement of the nomenclature of the British ground beetles. From this date until shortly before his death almost all of Clark's twenty or so publications were on foreign beetles as noted above. The most important, a world catalogue of Phytophaga, in which he collaborated with Henry Walter Bates, was incomplete at his death, one part only being published in 1866. 

Clark traveled and collected throughout Great Britain. In the spring of 1856 he took a two month cruise on John Edward Gray's (Lepidopterist and explorer from the British Museum) yacht, Miranda, visiting many localities in Spain and Algeria. In December of the same year he traveled to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil also with Gray.  There is a complete scan of his book here at the LazylikeSunday website. 

John Gray's yacht "Miranda"
Royal Yacht Squadron - pictured off TARIFA
 a painting by H Melling del'
(This is in the book  -Letters Home from Spain)

While in Brazil he collected at Corcovardo Mountain, Pijica (just north of Rio), Constancia, Presidencia (in the Organ Mountains), and Paraihiba. Clark became a fellow of the Entomological Society of London in 1850. He served on the council in 1864-5 and as Vice President in 1864. Clark attended and participated in many Society meetings when he was in London. He became a fellow of the Linnean Society of London on 21 June 1860. Clark was described as tall and handsome with a friendly outgoing personality. He served as curate of All Saints Parish in Northampton from 1848 until 1856, and he was conscientious in his ministerial duties. From 1856 to 1863 he lived in London. Due to poor health he left the ministry in 1863. Most of his private journals, field notes, and manuscript notes were destroyed "due to a most untoward accident" prior to his death. At the time of his death he was engaged in working on a catalog of the Hydradephaga for the British Museum. He died 10 June 1867 at Rhyl, Wales, and is buried in the Rhyl Cemetery.

Clark's British Coleoptera and Lepidoptera were sold at auction in 1865 by J. C. Stevens. His Elateridae, Hydradephaga, and Phytophaga were sold to a Mr. Higgins and were deposited in The Natural History Museum, London, in 1867. Clark's material was accessioned as number 67-56 and most specimens from the collection should bear a label with this number. Analysis of

Clark undertook several trips abroad which were published by Van Voorst as Letters Home from Spain, Algeriaand Brazil, during past Entomological Rambles, London, 1867.

The major part of Clark's collections of Hydradephaga and Phytophaga were purchased by the British Museum in 1867. (Waterhouse (1906), p.583 adds an interesting note about these: 'Clark purchased the collections of Laferte and Chevrolat, as well as considerable numbers from the collections of James Thomson (I am not sure that he purchased Thomson's entire collection; he probably divided it up with Baly, but I remember seeing the collection at his house in its original state with the large round coloured tickets) and others. All these are incorporated with the general collection'. The Hydradephaga are recorded to have numbered 8,000 specimens and the Phytophaga 56,000 specimens, although Gunther (1912), p.21, records the number of the latter as 5,600. Clark's collections of British Coleoptera and Lepidoptera are recorded by Chalmers-Hunt (1976) pp.103,105 to have been sold at Stevens' auction rooms in 1865, and his library in July 1867. Ashley Kirk-Spriggs tells me that there are specimens from France and Algiers dated 1861 in the Rippon Collection at Cardiff.

Smith (1986) p.71 records MS material in the HDO: Letters to Hope, 1848, and to Westwood, 1860-5, and notes concerning Cryptocephalidae from New Holland in the Hopeand Westwood collection.

 J.F. Dawson named Lopha (Bembidion) clarkii, which he discovered in the marshes at

 Herringstone, near Dorchester, after Clark, who he described as his 'friend and companion'.

 There are references to Clark in Janson's MS diary at Cambridge, and in the contemporary

 literature, eg. Johnson & Halbert (1902) p.543, and Dawson (1854) pp.67,135,157,199. The

 Ent. Ann. records his addresses in 1857 and 1860 as Portman and Manchester Squares,

 London, respectively. To the obituary listed above may be added Zoo., 2, 1867, p.840;

 Proc.LSL., 8, 1867, pp. c-ci; and Ent., 3, 1867, p.304 (by E. Newman). Clark's Australian

 researches are recorded by Musgrave (1932) p.48. (MD 2/02)

Clark's Proposed Taxa

One measure of the value of a taxonomist's work is how proposed taxa have been accepted by other scientists. In 39 publications Clark proposed 7 1 genus group names and 709 species group names. Of the 71 generic names, 17 (23.9%) are now synonyms and 6 (8.5%) are homonyms (Seeno and Wilcox 1982). The 23 names represent 32.4% of the names proposed. The species group names were analyzed using the most recent catalogs on each group (Blackwelder 1946; Clavareau 1914; Heikertinger and Csiki 1939, 1940; Jolivet 1971; Monros 1958, 1959; Weise 1916; Wilcox 1971, 1973; Zimmermann 1920).

Of the 709 names proposed, 74 (10.4%) are synonyms and 7 (1%) are homonyms.

These 8 1 names represent 1 1 .4% of the taxa proposed.

Clark's rate of unacceptable names is very high, especially at the generic level.

This level of invalid names is fairly normal for a worker who described species rather than doing revisionary work. Many of the genera containing Clark species group names have not been revised since his death, so the percentage of unacceptable names may rise.

Bibliography

The author is H. Clark unless otherwise specified. The numbering system was de-vised for this publication. I have attempted to present Clark's articles in the order they were published.

John Blackwall was "Family" 

These 2 scans below are from the 1841 census when he was a pupil at Beverley Grammar School

Edmund Fox appeared to be the head at the time

Information from Alumini list at the University of Cambridge:

CLARK, HAMLET. Adm. pens, at Corpus Christi, Apr. 26, 1842. Of Lines. S. and h. of Henrv (1803), V. of Harmston, Lines. Matric. Michs. 1842; B.A. 1846; M.A. 1849.Ord. deacon, 1847; priest, 1848; C. of All Saints', Northampton, till 1856. C. ofSt Mary's, Bryanston Square, London, 1859- 62. Minister of Quebec Chapel, Marylebone, 1863-7. Died lime 10, 1867, aged 44. at Rhyl. Brother of Roger E. (1854), etc. (G. Mag., 1867, II. 123.) 

This is the second page of the school

1851 Census

1861 Census at Marylebone

This is the probate information from Ancestry

Hamlet Edward Clark (July 23 1867. Amritsar - September 18 1928 Lahore Hospital)

Hamlet Edward Clark was the fourth child of Robert Clark and Elizabeth Brown. He was a barrister-at-law, who gave up this post to become a CMS Missionary at Clarkabad. It seems she sent the child off to the hills with his ayah and it was three months before she saw him again! He was the brother of Henry Martyn-Clark  - my Great Grandfather. He was the nephew of the Hamlet Clark the Coleopterist. 

1871 Census -at Marylebone Mary Clark with her children.

 Information from Alumini list at the University of Cambridge:

CLARK, HAMLET EDWARD. Adm. pens, at Corpus Christi, 
Oct. 6, 1886. 3rd s. of Rfobert] (1846), missionary, of 2, Arundel Gardens, London, W. B. lulv 23, 1867, at Amritzar, India. School, Marlborough. Matric. Michs. 1886; B.A. and LL.B. 1889. Adm. at the Inner Temple, Oct. 6, 1887, as 3rd s. of Robert, M.A., clerk, of Amritzar, India. Called to the Bar, 1890. Advocate of the High Court of Allahabad. 1891; of the Chief Court, Punjab, 1891. Gave up the Law for the Church. Ord. deacon, 1914; priest (Lahore) 1915; Missionary (C.M.S.) at Balemanabad, 1913-18; at Narowal, 1918-20; at Batala, 1921-3 and 1926-8; at Clarkabad, 1923-6. Hon. Secretary' of the S.P.C.K. at Lahore; on the Lahore Diocesan Committee. Died Sept. 18, 1928, aged 61, at Lahore. Brother of Stuart H. (1S88). {Crockford; The Times, Sept. 24, 1928.) 

1818 Census from Marlborough School.
He was at the school with his brother Donald M. Clark

1911 Census

He married Edith Sarah Panton on the 17th of February in 1906 in Calcutta.

This was the first mention of his wife I found.