Born in 1834 in Cerne Abbas, Dorset,[1] from the age of eleven Clark was educated as a boarder by William Barnes at his school in Dorchester, and according to a study of the school "exploited Barnes's training perhaps more successfully than any other pupil".

[3] By 1851, Clark's father had died, and he was living at 13, Long Street, Cerne Abbas, with his widowed mother, who was a retired draper, and two older unmarried sisters, Mary and Emma.

[n 1] He went on to train at J. M. Leigh's art school and became a successful artist at an early age, exhibiting at the Royal Academy between 1857 and 1904.

[4] He was elected a Member of the Institute of Oil Painters,[1] which had a membership limited to one hundred.

[5] Some of his paintings were named in the Dorset dialect,[3] in which his schoolmaster William Barnes wrote poetry.