William Barnard Clarke
William Barnard Clarke (1806–1865), sometimes mis-written Bernard, was an English architect, cartographer, archaeological writer and art collector, numismatist and literary translator.
Producing a celebrated series of maps or plans of European and Russian cities, and taking a strong interest in the discoveries at Pompeii, he travelled much in Europe and from the 1840s had his home and collections in the Grand Duchy of Baden.
Clarke, Architect, is recorded for 30 March 1839, as of Albany Street, Regent's Park, where it is stated that she was the daughter of Major-General W. Brooks of the Honourable East India Company's service.
At its formation in 1831 Clarke became President of the Architectural Society of London, a predecessor organization to the Royal Institute of British Architects, with which it merged in 1842.
[28] A "preview" appreciation is given in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1832, which refers to the posture of the sculpted figures, and problems of interpretation relating to the completion of the pinnacle or spire of the cross.
I could have wished that the honour of the Presidentship of the Architectural Society had been bestowed upon some other individual better able, by his learning, talent, and genius, to fill this high and important office, rather than so humble and unknown a person as myself.
Taking its name from the Gallery of the Royal Society of British Artists in Suffolk Street (established 1823–24[36]), the series was published by Charles Tilt and printed by Richard Taylor in London in 1836.
By 1838 it consisted of 77 plates,[38] and was advertised in an "Improved Edition" complete in two volumes, with the option of early impression proofs on India paper for an additional charge.
[41]) Among Clarke's first productions at their behest, of 1830, was a Celestial Atlas, a set of six maps of the stars, deriving and combining information from a range of scientifically-informed sources.
Although they were not fully original surveys, he often travelled to verify points in question, and illustrated them with architectural views and cameos which were usually arranged along the foot of each sheet.
It is not clear that Clarke was responsible for anything more than the sketches, though the view of the "Billiard-room, Cosmorama and Reading-room" (facing p. 32) is like the architectural elevations on his city plans.
[45] Clarke prepared and assembled the materials for a richly-illustrated two-volume work about the buildings and artefacts excavated at Pompeii, for Charles Knight's Library of Entertaining Knowledge, which appeared first in 1831–1832 for Baldwin and Craddock and was republished in 1836.
[48] Clarke is said to have devoted a second lengthy stay in Italy, in Rome, Florence and Naples, where he built up his collection of paintings and sculptures, together with a great number of valuable coins and medals.
[55] George, son of John Harvey (1755–1842) and Frances Kerrison (1765–1809) of Thorpe,[56] had drowned in a bathing accident in 1831 while holidaying at Winterton-on-Sea, Norfolk, from his usual London residence of Tavistock Square.
[63] After their mother's death, and following an Act of Parliament "To Facilitate Leases and Sales of Inherited Estates" (20 Victoria), George Frederick and Augustus John Harvey, and their sisters Josephine and Caroline, brought a Chancery suit in 1857 against William Barnard Clarke and other relatives.
[66] The circumstances had, meanwhile, altered when Clarke made his third marriage, in March 1858, to Pauline Föhrenbach of Herbolzheim (with consent of her father), at the house of Frederic Hamilton, Her Majesty's Chargé d'affaires at Baden-Baden.
William Barnard Clarke the architect is certainly identified with the author of one of the early English translations of Faust, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's masterwork of German literature.
The volume which passes under Clarke's name, Translation of Goethe's Faust Parts I and II was published in London and Freiburg-im-Breisgau in 1865, and its preface is dated from Littenweiler, September 1865.
[70] Since his publisher Charles Knight had (in his first venture publishing The Etonian in 1820–21) received contributions from Derwent Coleridge, Ker had been a patron of William Blake's, and William Hart Coleridge was curate at St Andrew Holborn during Clarke's childhood, Clarke's acquaintance from his younger days afforded various possible means for the transmission of this belief.
[71] An English study of Goethe's work (of 1885) utterly deplored Clarke's inability to scan or rhyme, to say nothing of his lack of style or poetic instinct.
"A glass plate photograph in the Freiburg Archives records Clarke's carved gravestone at the Alter Friedhof (Old Cemetery) with the life-dates 1806–1865.
In 1884 the Staatliche Kunsthalle in Karlsruhe expressed a strong interest in acquiring remaining collections after Grand Duke Friedrich I had commissioned no less a person than Jacob Burckhardt to compile a report on them.
