Sir Edward Clarke It was characteristic of Sir Edward Clarke,
K.C., who died on Sunday last at the age of ninety, to have written his own obituary notice for the Times—and to have made a very good job of it. The son of a modest City tradesman, Clarke made his way to the Bar in 1864 by hard work and self-denial, and, once there, he became the most successful advocate of his time. He made a dashing entry into politics in 1880 by winning the old Liberal seat at Southwark in a by-election, and the victory was said, perhaps wrongly, to have persuaded Lord Beaconsfield that he might safely go to the country. Clarke sat as a Conservative for Plymouth for the next twenty years. He was Solicitor-General in Lord Salis- bury's Government from 1886 to 1892, but declined the office in 1895 rather than give up private practice. He showed his independence in 1900 by opposing the South African War policy and resigning his seat. Again in 1906, when he was elected for the City of London, he made it clear that he was opposed to the taxation of imported food. Clarke said very truly in the Times obituary that he "owed none of his success to any advantages of personal appearance." But this sturdy figure commanded not merely respect but affection for his sterling qualities. He typified those Victorian virtues that, with his evangelical devotion, are not too common nowadays.
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