Godfrey Bagnall Clarke

Godfrey Bagnall Clarke (c.1742-26 December 1774), of Sutton Scarsdale Hall in Derbyshire, was a British Member of Parliament, representing Derbyshire.

Clarke was elected in 1768, winning a contested election (a rare event in Derbyshire) to beat one of the sitting MPs, Sir Henry Harpur. Clarke's personal politics are unknown, and he seems never to have spoken in the House of Commons, but he was supported by the Derbyshire Tories and voted consistently with the opposition. He was re-elected unopposed in October 1774 but was already ill, and died only two months later, unmarried and in his early thirties.

His estates at Sutton, Chilcote Hall and Somersall Hall passed to his sister who married Joseph Hart Pryce (Clarke from 1787) and then to their daughter Anna Maria Clarke who married Walter Butler, 18th Earl of Ormonde.

Clarke was a great friend of the historian Edward Gibbon, whom he met while on the Grand Tour, and Gibbon executed his will.

References

• Lewis Namier & John Brooke, The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1754-1790 (London: HMSO, 1964)
• D M Low, Edward Gibbon 1737-1794 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1937)
• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages