mother in Sydney, having come thither from Adelaide on the death of her father several years previously. Her father, Henry Clarke, was by profession an accountant, and in many ways she resembled him. Her mother outlived her, and died on 8th August, 1894.
When Florence Clarke married she was twenty years old. She was then of a middle height, rather slender and delicate in appearance; with clear skin, large blue eyes, and beautiful golden-brown hair, long and silken. Her son Barcroft inherited her noticeable Jewish nose and keenly nervous temperament: in manhood he is described as ‘simply a hard masculine likeness of his mother.’
Barcroft Capel Boake, father of the poet, was born at Dublin, Ireland, on 12th November, 1838. His unusual name of Barcroft had been handed down in the family for generations; and came to him from his cousin and godfather, the Rev. Barcroft Boake, D.D., one-time incumbent of Holy Trinity Church, Balaclava, Melbourne. As a lad he gained some experience in photography; and when he emigrated to Australia at the age of twenty he found a profitable living in the business.
The young couple were married at St. John's Church, Darlinghurst, by the Rev. Edward Rogers. They commenced their life together at Vergemont Cottage, Waterview Bay, Balmain; where their first child, Barcroft Henry Thomas, the subject of this memoir, was born on 26th
