James Stanier Clarke

James Stanier Clarke (1766–1834)[1] was an English cleric, naval author and man of letters.

[4] About the beginning of 1791 he was living in Sussex with his mother, taking in the refugee Anthony Charles Cazenove for half a year.

[8] Clarke in February 1795 entered the Royal Navy as a chaplain; and served, 1796–99, on board HMS Impetueux in the Channel fleet, under the command of captain John Willett Payne, by whom he was introduced to George, Prince of Wales.

[4] In 1798, Clarke published a volume of Sermons preached in the Western Squadron during its services off Brest, on board HM ship Impetueux (1798; 2nd edit.

With John McArthur, a purser in the navy and secretary to Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood at Toulon, he started the Naval Chronicle, a monthly magazine of naval history and biography, which ran for twenty years.

[4] Its subtitle "of the Providential Deliverance of Vessels" reflects its traditional content, harking back to James Janeway.

[13] In 1809, with McArthur, Clarke published his major work, The Life of Lord Nelson (2 vols.

[14] In 1816, Clarke published a Life of King James II, from the Stuart MSS.

James Stanier Clarke
Memorial tablet to Clarke in All Hallows Church, Tillington, West Sussex
Satirical print from 1814, The Divine and the Donkey–or Petworth Frolicks against George (the Prince Regent) and James Stanier Clarke. A drunken parson is being put to bed with an ass-foal wrapped in a petticoat, a prank after celebrations of the battle of Leipzig . The parson is identified in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography as Clarke: [ 1 ] he was being 'punished' for setting up an assignation with a servant-girl. The incident at Petworth House was real, but the presence of George seems to be fictional.