He was the oldest of eight children born to Anne Alicia (née Tucker) and John Nicholas Clemons.

After being called to the bar in England, he returned to Tasmania and practised law in Launceston; he also had "wide mining interests".

He was a fiscal conservative, opposing the Trans-Australian Railway, the construction of Canberra, and increased defence spending.

After his re-election in 1913 he was appointed as an honorary minister in the Cook government, in order to give Tasmania a presence in the ministry.

He died at his son's home in Oxford on 10 November 1944, aged 82, having been predeceased by his wife a few days earlier.