CLARK, Hamlet

Born in Navenby, Lincolnshire. Became a Reverend. Died at Rhyl in North Wales. Edward Newman, who wrote Clark's obituary in EMM., 4, 1867, pp.43-44, recorded that he was 'Indefatiquable in collecting, possessed of an earnest love for Entomology, and uniting an innate rapidity of perception to a capability of unwearied application ... [he] will long be remembered as one of that band of pioneers which cleared a starting point for us out of the confusion of older authors; and it is by his labours in the Hydradephaga, Phytophaga and certain groups of the Rhyncophora that the Coleopterists of this country have chiefly benefitted. His works on exotic Phytophaga and Hydradephaga have procured for him a universal reputation'. Clark's interest in entomology developed while he was in his teens and he published his first article 'Captures near Towcester' in Ent., 1, 1842, pp.409-410. This was followed by notes of further interesting captures in Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire and at Whittlesea Mere, and in 1855 by his 'Synonymic list of the British carnivorous water beetles, together with critical remarks and notices of foreign allied species' (Zool., 14, pp.4846-4869). 'A synonymic list of the British species of Philhydrida' followed in the same periodical in the following year and at this time he also collaborated with J.F.Dawson on a re-arrangement of the nomenclature of the British ground beetles. From this date until shortly before his death almost all of Clark's twenty or so publications were on foreign beetles as noted above. The most important, a world catalogue of Phytophaga, in which he collaborated with Henry Walter Bates, was incomplete at his death, one part only being published in 1866. Clark undertook several trips abroad which were published by Van Voorst as Letters Home from Spain, Algeria and Brazil, during past Entomological Rambles, London, 1867. The major part of Clark's collections of Hydradephaga and Phytophaga were purchased by the British Museum in 1867. (Waterhouse, C.O. (1906), p.583 adds an interesting note about these 'Clark purchased the collections of Laferte and Chevrolat, as well as considerable numbers from the collections of James Thomson (I am not sure that he purchased Thomson's entire collection; he probably divided it up with Baly, but I remember seeing the collection at his house in its original state with the large round coloured tickets) and others. All these are incorporated with the general collection'. The Hydradephaga are recorded to have numbered 8,000 specimens and the Phytophaga 56,000 specimens, although Gunther,J.(1912), p.21, records the number of the latter as 5,600. Clark's collections of British Coleoptera and Lepidoptera are recorded by Chalmers-Hunt, J.M. (1976) pp.103,105 to have been sold at Stevens' auction rooms in 1865, and his library in July 1867. Ashley Kirk-Spriggs tells me that there are specimens from France and Algiers dated 1861 in the Rippon Collection at Cardiff. Smith, A.Z. (1986) p.71 records MS material in the HDO: Letters to Hope, 1848, and to Westwood, 1860-5, and notes concerning Cryptocephalidae from New Holland in the Hope and Westwood collection. J.F.Dawson named Lopha (Bembidion) clarkii, which he discovered in the marshes at Herringstone, near Dorchester, after Clark, who he described as his 'friend and companion'. There are references to Clark in Janson's MS diary at Cambridge, and in the contemporary literature, eg. Johnson, J.F. and Halbert,J,N, (1902) p.543, and Dawson,J.F. (1854) pp.67,135,157,199. The Ent. Ann. records his addresses in 1857 and 1860 as Portman and Manchester Squares, London, respectively. To the obituary listed above may be added Zool., 2, 1867, p.840; Proc.LSL., 8, 1867, pp. c-ci; and Ent., 3, 1867, p.304 (by E. Newman). Clark's Australian researches are recorded by Musgrave, (1932) p.48. (MD 2/02)