William Branwhite Clarke
Encyclopedia
William Branwhite Clarke, FRS
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...

 (2 June 1798 – 16 June 1878) was an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 geologist
Geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...

 and clergyman, active in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

.

Early life and England

Clarke was born at East Bergholt
East Bergholt
East Bergholt is a village in the south of Suffolk, England, just north of the Essex border. It is "twinned" with the village of Barbizon, France....

, in Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...

, the eldest child of William Clarke, schoolmaster, and his wife Sarah, née Branwhite. He received his early education at Dedham
Dedham, Essex
Dedham is a village within the borough of Colchester in northeast Essex, England, situated on the River Stour and on the border of Essex and Suffolk...

 grammar school, and in 1817 entered Jesus College, Cambridge
Jesus College, Cambridge
Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The College was founded in 1496 on the site of a Benedictine nunnery by John Alcock, then Bishop of Ely...

. In 1819 entered a poem for the Chancellor's Gold Medal
Chancellor's Gold Medal
The Chancellor's Gold Medal is a prestigious annual award at Cambridge University for poetry, paralleling Oxford University's Newdigate prize. It was first presented by Prince William Frederick, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh during his time as Chancellor of the University of Cambridge...

; this was awarded to Macaulay, but Clarke's poem Pompeii, published in the same year, was judged second. He took his B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 degree in 1821, and obtained his M.A. degree, in 1824. In 1821 he was appointed curate of Ramsholt
Ramsholt
Ramsholt is a small village in Suffolk, England. It is situated on the northern shore of the River Deben.Its church, All Saints, is one of 38 existing round-tower churches in Suffolk.It's economy revolves around the pub next to the river dock....

 in Suffolk, and he acted in his clerical capacity in other places until 1839. He was also master of the Free School of East Bergholt for about 18 months in 1830-1. Having become interested in geology through the teachings of Sedgwick
Adam Sedgwick
Adam Sedgwick was one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Devonian period of the geological timescale...

, he utilized his opportunities and gathered many interesting facts on the geology of East Anglia
East Anglia
East Anglia is a traditional name for a region of eastern England, named after an ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdom, the Kingdom of the East Angles. The Angles took their name from their homeland Angeln, in northern Germany. East Anglia initially consisted of Norfolk and Suffolk, but upon the marriage of...

 which were embodied in a paper On the Geological Structure and Phenomena of Suffolk (Trans. Geol. Soc. 1837). He also communicated a series of papers on the geology of S.E. Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...

 to the Magazine of Nat. Hist. (1837-1838).

Career in Australia

In 1839, after a severe illness, Clarke left England for New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

, mainly with the object of benefiting by the sea voyage. He had been commissioned by some of his English colleagues to ascertain the extent and character of the carboniferous formation in New South Wales (Clarke's letter to Sydney Morning Herald, 18 February 1852). He remained, however, in that country, and came to be regarded as the Father of Australian Geology.

Clarke was headmaster of The King's School
The King's School, Sydney
The King's School is an independent Anglican, day and boarding school for boys in North Parramatta in the western suburbs of Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1831, it is Australia's oldest school and forms one of the nine "Great Public Schools" of New South Wales. Situated within a site, Gowan Brae,...

, Parramatta
Parramatta, New South Wales
Parramatta is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located in Greater Western Sydney west of the Sydney central business district on the banks of the Parramatta River. Parramatta is the administrative seat of the Local Government Area of the City of Parramatta...

, in May 1839 until the end of 1840. Until 1870 he ministered to parishes from Parramatta to the Hawkesbury River
Hawkesbury River
The Hawkesbury River, also known as Deerubbun, is one of the major rivers of the coastal region of New South Wales, Australia. The Hawkesbury River and its tributaries virtually encircle the metropolitan region of Sydney.-Geography:-Course:...

, then of Campbelltown
Campbelltown, New South Wales
Campbelltown is a suburb in south-western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Campbelltown is located 51 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of the City of Campbelltown.- History :Campbelltown...

, and finally of Willoughby
Willoughby, New South Wales
Willoughby is a suburb on the lower North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Willoughby is located 8 kilometres north of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Willoughby....

. He zealously devoted attention to the geology of the country, with results that have been of paramount importance. In 1841 he found specimens of gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

, but he was NOT the first European who had obtained it in situ in the country. (This honour goes correctly to Government Surveyor James McBrien who found flakes at Locksley NSW in February 1823). Clarke described finding it both in the detrital deposits and in the quartz reefs west of the Blue Mountains, the same area where McBrien had found it, and he declared his belief in its abundance. Mr R Lowe, Lieutenant William Lawson, an unnamed convict (who was flogged for the discovery), Dr Johann Lhotsky
John Lhotsky
John Lhotsky was a Galicia-born Austrian naturalist, lecturer, artist and author. He wrote and published on the topics of zoology, botany, geology, geography and politics. Lhotsky was active in the early colonies of New South Wales and Tasmania from 1832 until 1838...

, and "Count" Paul Strzelecki had also found gold in Australia before Clarke. It appears they mostly had found alluvial flakes, whereas Clarke had found it embedded in quartz rocks. Early in 1844 he showed the governor of New South Wales, Sir George Gipps
George Gipps
Sir George Gipps was Governor of the colony of New South Wales, Australia, for eight years, between 1838 and 1846. His governorship was during a period of great change for New South Wales and Australia, as well as for New Zealand, which was administered as part of New South Wales for much of this...

, some specimens of gold he had found. Sir George asked him where he had got it, and when Clarke told him said "Put it away or we shall have our throats cut". Clarke, in his evidence before the select committee on his claims, which sat in 1861, stated that he knew of the existence of the gold in 1841. Clarke, however, agreed with Gipps that it may not be wise to announce the presence of gold in the colony. Clarke continued his clerical duties, but was occasionally lent to the government to carry out geological investigations. In 1849 he made the first discovery of tin
Tin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead and has two possible oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4...

 in Australia and in 1859 he made known the occurrence of diamond
Diamond
In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...

s. He discovered secondary (Cretaceous
Cretaceous
The Cretaceous , derived from the Latin "creta" , usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide , is a geologic period and system from circa to million years ago. In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period of the...

) fossils in Queensland in 1860, he was also the first to indicate the presence of Silurian
Silurian
The Silurian is a geologic period and system that extends from the end of the Ordovician Period, about 443.7 ± 1.5 Mya , to the beginning of the Devonian Period, about 416.0 ± 2.8 Mya . As with other geologic periods, the rock beds that define the period's start and end are well identified, but the...

 rocks, and to determine the age of the coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

-bearing rocks in New South Wales. In 1869 he announced the discovery of remains of Dinornis in Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

. He finished the preparation of the fourth edition of his Remarks on the Sedimentary Formations of New South Wales on his eightieth birthday, and died about a fortnight later on 16 June 1878.

Legacy

Clarke was a trustee of the Australian Museum
Australian Museum
The Australian Museum is the oldest museum in Australia, with an international reputation in the fields of natural history and anthropology. It features collections of vertebrate and invertebrate zoology, as well as mineralogy, palaeontology, and anthropology...

 at Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

, and an active member of the Royal Society of New South Wales
Royal Society of New South Wales
The Royal Society of New South Wales is a learned society based in Sydney, Australia. It was established as the Philosophical Society of Australasia on 27 June 1821...

 of which he was vice-president 1866–1878http://www.ipenz.org.nz/ipenz/Publications/ezine/2005/May06.pdf; the Clarke Medal
Clarke Medal
The Clarke Medal is awarded by the Royal Society of New South Wales for distinguished work in the Natural sciences.Named in honour of the Reverend William Branwhite Clarke, one of the founders of the Society...

 awarded by the Society is named in his honour. In 1860 he published Researches in the Southern Gold-fields of New South Wales. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1876, and in the following year was awarded the Murchison Medal
Murchison Medal
An award established by Roderick Murchison, who died in 1871. One of the closing public acts of Murchison’s life was the founding of a chair of geology and mineralogy in the University of Edinburgh. Under his will there was established the Murchison Medal and geological fund to be awarded annually...

 by the Geological Society of London
Geological Society of London
The Geological Society of London is a learned society based in the United Kingdom with the aim of "investigating the mineral structure of the Earth"...

. His contributions to Australian scientific journals were numerous. He died near Sydney. His name is commemorated in the William Clarke College secondary school at Kellyville, NSW.

External links

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