Schoolmaster and classical scholar, was the son of John Clarke, an innkeeper of York, where he was born in 1687. After a preliminary training in the school of his native city, under Mr. Tomlinson, he was sent to the university of Cambridge, being admitted a sizar of St. John's College on 7 May 1703. He graduated B.A. in 1706–7, M.A. in 1710 (Cantabrigienses Graduati, ed. 1787, p. 84). In 1720 he was appointed master of the public grammar school at Hull, and afterwards he became master of the grammar school at Gloucester, where he died on 29 April 1734