Clark was born at Datchet on 5 April 1780; his mother Elizabeth (b. abt 1753) was a daughter of John Sale the elder (b.
[1] In 1802, on the death of his grandfather, Clark succeeded him as lay clerk at St. George's Chapel and Eton College, holding both appointments to 1811.
He advocated that the singing men and choristers of cathedrals should regain ancient privileges, of which over time they had been deprived.
[4] In the preface to this book was an account of God Save the King, the British national anthem, in which the authorship was attributed to Henry Carey.
A second edition appeared in 1824, in which this account was omitted, two years after Clark had started a controversy as to the authorship of the national anthem by publishing a pamphlet upon the subject, in which he attributed it to the Elizabethan composer John Bull.
[1] In 1841 Clark returned to the subject of John Bull, and issued a prospectus for the publication of all the extant works of the Elizabethan composer.
In 1843 he published an arrangement of an organ or virginal Miserere of Bull's, to which he fitted words; it was performed at Christ Church, Newgate Street, on 3 August 1843, before the King of Hanover.
[1] In 1847 Clark advocated the erection of a monument to William Caxton; his letters on this subject to the Sunday Times were republished in pamphlet form.