Sir Ernest Clarke FSA (21 February 1856 – 4 March 1923) was an English medical clerk for public health, historian of agriculture, Secretary of the Royal Agricultural Society, antiquarian, folklorist, bibliographer, author, editor,[1] and scholar of folk songs.
After education at King Edward VI School, Bury St Edmunds,[3] Ernest Clarke was a salaried clerk in the medical department of the Local Government Board from 1872 to 1881.
[2] During the 1880s he was a valued adviser and coeditor assisting Ernest Hart, the editor-in-chief of the British Medical Journal.
In the early 1890s he was a lecturer under Professor John Wrightson at Downton Agricultural College.
[5] He was knighted in 1898 and was made Chevalier de l'ordre du Mérite agricole in 1889.