Charles Baron Clarke (17 June 1832 – 25 August 1906) was a British

botanist Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

. He worked in as a civil servant in British India in the Bengal education department. He was also keenly interested in botany and held the position of superintendent of the

Calcutta Botanical Gardens The Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden, previously known as Indian Botanic Garden and the Calcutta Botanic Garden, is a botanical garden situated in Shibpur, Howrah near Kolkata. They are commonly known as the Calcutta Botanica ...

from 1869 to 1871. During this period he became a specialist on the

Cyperaceae The Cyperaceae () are a family of graminoid (grass-like), monocotyledonous flowering plants known as wikt:sedge, sedges. The family (biology), family is large; botanists have species description, described some 5,500 known species in about 90 ...

and based on their distributions developed an influential phytogeographical classification of British India.

Life and work

Clarke was born at

Andover Andover may refer to: Places Australia *Andover, Tasmania Canada * Andover Parish, New Brunswick * Perth-Andover, New Brunswick United Kingdom * Andover, Hampshire, England ** RAF Andover, a former Royal Air Force station United States * Andov ...

, the eldest son of Turner Poulter Clarke JP and Elizabeth née Parker. He was introduced into botanical tastes by his paternal grandmother Elizabeth Baron who was the brother of a founder of the Agricultural Society of Saffron Walden. He was educated at

King's College School King's College School, also known as Wimbledon, KCS, King's and KCS Wimbledon, is a Private schools in the United Kingdom, private Public school (United Kingdom), public school in Wimbledon, London, Wimbledon, southwest London, England. The s ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, and at

Trinity The Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the Christian doctrine concerning the nature of God, which defines one God existing in three, , consubstantial divine persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit, thr ...

and Queens' Colleges,

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

. He took a special interest in economics and was part of a group that included

Henry Fawcett Henry Fawcett (26 August 1833 – 6 November 1884) was a British academic, politician, statesman and economist. Background and education Henry Fawcett was born in Salisbury where his father was a gentleman farmer. He was educated at the A ...

Leslie Stephen Sir Leslie Stephen (28 November 1832 – 22 February 1904) was an English author, critic, historian, biographer, mountaineer, and an Ethical Culture, Ethical movement activist. He was also the father of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell and the ...

, and John Rigby. He took an interest in climbing and travel and together with Leslie Stephen climbed

Pillar (Lake District) Pillar is a mountain in the western part of the English Lake District. Situated between the valleys of Ennerdale to the north and Wasdale to the south, it is the highest point of the Pillar group (some dozen fells clustered round it). At ...

and in the Swiss alps. He was bracketed third wrangler in 1856. He began the study of law at

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, commonly known as Lincoln's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for Barrister, barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister ...

in 1856 and was called to the bar in 1860.

India

Clarke lectured in mathematics at Presidency College,

Calcutta Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...

, from 1857 to 1865. Clarke joined the uncovenanted civil service in 1865 and became Inspector of Schools in

Eastern Bengal East Bengal or Eastern Bengal may refer to: * the eastern part of Bengal, a historical term for a region in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent * Eastern Bengal and Assam, a province of India 1905–1912 * East Bengal, a province of the Do ...

and later of

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

, and superintendent of the Calcutta Botanical Garden from 1869 to 1871 in the place of Thomas Anderson (1832–1870). He travelled widely and by 1877, his botanical collections made for Kew included about 25000 specimens of nearly 5000 species. In 1879 he was put on special duty which included four years at Kew to assist Sir

Joseph Hooker Joseph Hooker (November 13, 1814 – October 31, 1879) was an American Civil War general for the Union, chiefly remembered for his decisive defeat by Confederate General Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863. Hooker had serv ...

with work on the Flora of British India. He became director of public instruction in Bengal in 1884 and was transferred to Shillong (then in Assam) the next year. He utilized this period to explore the northeast of India. He retired from the

Indian Civil Service The Indian Civil Service (ICS), officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the higher civil service of the British Empire in India during British Raj, British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947. Its members ruled over more than 3 ...

in 1887 and lived near Kew along with his brother Poulter Clarke so that he could continue to work as a volunteer at the

Royal Botanic Gardens Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. An internationally important botanical research and education institution, it employs 1,100 ...

for the next nineteen years, right until his death. He also took an interest in music, mathematics, ethnography, geology and economics. Clarke was president of the

Linnean Society The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature collec ...

from 1894 to 1896, and was elected a fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

in 1882. He died from internal inflammation caused by excessive bicycling and is buried in

Richmond Cemetery Richmond Cemetery is a cemetery on Lower Grove Road in Richmond, London, Richmond in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England. It opened in 1786 on a plot of land granted by an Acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom, Act of Parliame ...

. There are number of plants named from his specimens with the

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

''clarkei'', including '' Iris clarkei'', '' Clarkella'',which is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed with ...

s in the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Rubiaceae Rubiaceae () is a family (biology), family of flowering plants, commonly known as the coffee, madder, or bedstraw family. It consists of terrestrial trees, shrubs, lianas, or herbs that are recognizable by simple, opposite leaves with Petiole ( ...

. and also '' Clarkeinda'', which is a genus of

fungi A fungus (: fungi , , , or ; or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and mold (fungus), molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as one ...

in the family

Agaricaceae The Agaricaceae are a family of basidiomycete fungi and include the genus ''Agaricus'', as well as basidiomycetes previously classified in the families Tulostomataceae, Lepiotaceae, and Lycoperdaceae. Taxonomy The family Agaricaceae was publishe ...

Bibliography

Clarke wrote several books and papers, including: * ''The Cyperaceae of Costa Rica'' * ''On the Indian species of Cyperus: with remarks on some others that specially illustrate the sub-divisions of the genus'' * ''Illustrations of Cyperaceae'' * ''Cyperaceae of the Philippines: a list of the species in the Kew Herbarium'' * ''Philippine Acanthaceae'' * ''The Subsubareas of British India'' * '' Speculations From Political Economy'' (1886) * ''A list of the flowering plants, ferns, and mosses collected in the immediate neighbourhood of Andover'' * ''A class-book of geography'' (1889) * ''The stone monuments of the Khasi hills'' (1874) One of the most influential contributions was his biogeographical classification of British India which was based on his studies of the Cyperaceae. This was developed from Hooker's earlier biogeographical classification. He extended the work to a world biogeography in 1892 which agreed largely with the zoological distribution regions indicated by A. R. Wallace.

References

External links

*
Archives at American Philosophical Society
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Clarke, Charles Baron 1832 births 1906 deaths British botanists Fellows of the Royal Society Presidents of the Linnean Society of London Fellows of Queens' College, Cambridge Alumni of Queens' College, Cambridge Burials at Richmond Cemetery