Charles Clerke

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Captain Charles Clerke RN (August 22, 1741 – August 1779) was an officer in the Royal Navy who sailed on four voyages of exploration.

Clerke started studying at the Royal Naval Academy in Portsmouth when he was 13. During the Seven Years' War he served aboard the HMS Dorsetshire and HMS Bellona.

In 1764 he joined Captain John Byron, aboard HMS Dolphin, on Byron's expedition to explore the Pacific.

The Dolphin returned in 1766. Its circumnavigation of 22 months was the shortest up to that point. Upon his return Clerke published an account of encountering Patagonian giants, which the Dictionary of Canadian Biography attributed to his high spirits.

Clerke's last three voyages were all under the command of Captain James Cook.

Clerke started the first voyage aboard HM Bark Endeavour (1768–1771) as a master's mate. Cook promoted him to acting lieutenant in 1771. Clerke was HMS Resolution's second lieutenant on Cook's second voyage (1772–1775).

While ashore between Cook's 2nd and 3rd voyages Clerke agreed to serve time in the Fleet debtor's prison for a debt one of his brothers, Sir John Clerke, incurred. While in debtor's prison he was infected with the tuberculosis that eventually killed him.

Clerke took command of the expedition and of HMS Resolution, when Cook was killed in a skirmish with Hawaiians on February 14, 1779.

Clerke continued the expedition's exploration of the Northern Pacific coast, searching for a navigable Northwest Passage. The expedition then proceeded to the Pacific coast of Siberia. James King, one of his subordinates, wrote that Clerke's illness had reduced him to skeletal thinness. Clerke died enroute to Kamchatka from tuberculosis. Clerke was buried in Kamchatka on August 29, 1779.

Clerke's second in command, John Gore, took command and took the expedition home to Britain.