Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/391

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Clerke
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Clerke

colleagues. In 1893 he was elected president of the Institute of Journalists, and in 1894 president of the International Congress of the Press at Antwerp. In 1896, when freed from regular journalistic work, he advocated the cause of the Armenians, whom Turkey was persecuting anew. As honorary secretary of the committee which was formed to press the question in parliament, Clayden organised meetings, and in 1897 published 'Armenia, the Case against Lord Salisbury.' He died suddenly on 19 Feb. 1902 at 1 Upper Woburn Place, and was buried in Highgate cemetery.

He married (l) in 1853, Jane, daughter of Charles Fowle, of Dorchester, Oxfordshire (d. 1870); (2) in 1887, Ellen, daughter of Henry Sharpe, of Hampstead (d. 1897). His second wife was grandniece of Samuel Rogers [q. v.] the poet, and a niece of Samuel Sharpe [q. v.], the Egyptologist; of the latter, Clayden published a biography in 1883, while of Samuel Rogers he wrote two memoirs from family papers, 'The Early Life of Samuel Rogers' (1887); and 'Rogers and his Contemporaries' (2 vols. 1889). His eldest son by his first wife, Arthur William Clayden, became principal of University College, Exeter. In addition to separately published pamphlets and the works already mentioned, Clayden's chief publications were:

  1. 'The Religious Value of the Doctrine of Continuity,' 1866.
  2. 'Scientific Men and Religious Teachers,' 1874.
  3. 'England under Lord Beaconsfield,' 1880.
  4. 'Five Years of Liberal and Six Years of Conservative Government,' 1880.

[The Times, 20 Feb. 1902; Daily News, 20 Feb. 1902; F. M. Thomas, Recollections of Sir John Robinson, 1904; Letters to William Allingham, 1911; Athenaeum, 22 Feb. 1902; private information.]

G. S. W.

CLERKE, AGNES MARY (1842–1907), historian of astronomy, born at Skibbereen, co. Cork, on 10 Feb. 1842, was younger daughter of John William Clerke (1814-1890), by his wife Catherine, daughter of Rickard Deasy of Clonakilty, co. Cork, and sister of Rickard Deasy [q. v.], an Irish judge. Her elder sister, Ellen Mary, is noticed below. Her only brother, Aubrey St. John Clerke, became a chancery barrister in London. The father, a classical scholar and graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, was manager until 1861 of a bank at Skibbereen, owned land in the district, and practised astronomy as a recreation. Interested as a child by her father in astronomy, Agnes Clerke was highly educated at home. In 1861 she and her family moved to Dublin, and in 1863 to Queenstown. The years 1867-77 were spent in Italy, chiefly in Florence, where Agnes studied in the libraries and wrote an article, 'Copernicus in Italy,' which was published in the 'Edinburgh Review' in April 1877. Numerous articles on both astronomical and literary themes appeared in the 'Review' between that date and her death. In 1877 the family settled in London, which was thenceforth Agnes Clerke's home. A paper in the 'Edinburgh' on 'The Chemistry of the Stars' in 1880 was followed in 1885 by her first book, 'A Popular History of Astronomy during the Nineteenth Century' (4th edit. 1902). Nothing of the kind had appeared since 1852, when the 'History of Physical Astronomy' was published by Professor Robert Grant (1814–1892) [q. v. Suppl. I]. In the interval the spectroscope had been applied to astronomy and the science of astronomical physics inaugurated. Miss Clerke's work, which at once took standard rank, was especially valuable for its wealth of references. In 1888 she had the opportunity of practical astronomical work during a three months' visit to Sir David and Lady Gill at the observatory at the Cape of Good Hope. In 1890 her second book, 'The System of the Stars' (2nd edit. 1905), maintained her reputation. The third and last of her larger works, 'Problems in Astrophysics,' came out in 1903. Smaller volumes were 'The Herschels and Modern Astronomy,' in ' Century Science' series, edited by Sir Henry Roscoe (1895), 'Astronomy,' in 'Concise Knowledge' series (1898), and 'Modern Cosmogonies' (1905). Each annual volume of the 'Observatory Magazine ' from 1886 until her death contained reviews by her of books or descriptions of new advances in astronomy. She contributed many astronomical articles, including 'Laplace,' to the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica' (9th edit.). In this Dictionary she wrote almost all the lives of astronomers from the first volume to the supplementary volumes in 1901. In 1892 the governors of the Royal Institution awarded to Miss Agnes Clerke the Actonian prize of 100l., and in 1903 she was elected an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society, a rare distinction among women, shared at the time with Lady Huggins; it had been accorded previously only to Mrs. Somerville, Caroline Herschel, and Ann Sheepshanks.

Miss Clerke's devotion to astronomy never lessened her interest in general literature, on which she wrote constantly in the 'Edinburgh.' In 1892 she published