ERC was a prominent supporter of bankruptcy, insolvency, receivership and bank auditing reform and was a pioneer in corporate rescues in Canada.

[3] ERC eventually convinced the financial institutions who sought his counsel in winding up situations to allow him to operate the failing business as a going concern through his appointment as a receiver.

He was educated at Upper Canada College from 1864 to 1867 before training with Lewis, Kay & Co, a dry goods merchant based in Montreal for £25 annually.

William Herbert Price, Ontario Attorney-General described him as “the first chartered accountant in Canada, I believe, and his organisation is the monument to his ability and integrity.

[12] By the 1890s the Clarkson family had acquired substantial land on Toronto Island alongside ERC's schoolboy friends George Horace Gooderham and Aemilius Jarvis.

A staunch advocate for education, ERC was the auditor of the University of Toronto from 1881 to his death in 1931, a service he provided free of charge.

ERC was a heavy supporter of education and frequently funded the University of Toronto, provided temporary land in 1903 to Ridley College in the old Stephenson House in St. Catherines, and donated to the Royal Ontario Museum of Zoology two blue geese which had been shot and preserved by his son in 1922.

[16] Of his sons, two saw combat during the first world war: Maurice Arundel a sporting star who had played for the Toronto Argonauts and a lieutenant who was killed in Vimmy Ridge in April 1917,[17] and Edward Guy who was awarded the Military Cross at Passchendaele.

[18] Through the war, ERC served on the executive committee of the Canadian Patriotic Fund from 1918 alongside friend William Mulock and The Marquess of Willingdon, the Vere Ponsonby, 9th Earl of Bessborough, and Lord Byng of Vimy.