Discussing research with historian David Killingray I requested some details on James Clarke, which he had gathered during his on-going research into the London-based League of Coloured Peoples, founded in 1931. Rejecting the now-standard approach that much of the history of black people in Britain before the arrival of the Windrush from Jamaica in 1948 deserves to be described as “forgotten”, “overlooked”, “absent” and when biographical details are published, that the person was “the first” black to be whatever, many details were passed to me for addition to this website. People of African descent were active all over the British Isles, worked and achieved in a wide variety of tasks, and led lives that were in no major way different to others of their education and class. Guy Errington Kerr, doctor and pianist, is detailed on page 271. Another Jamaican settler in Britain was Agnes Foster who married a Yorkshire farmer in the 1840s and became an officer in the Salvation Army (page 156). A family with musical ambitions, the Audains, is featured on page 251, an Oxford law graduate and Cheshire mayor, Edward Nelson, is on page 188. and a nurse who lived most of her life in Britain – Lulu Coote – is on page 210 (with photographs).The British-born Charles Bolton, a sniper in the Parachute Regiment in 1944, is detailed and pictured on page 254. Other black military personnel are mentioned on page 122. James Samuel Clarke was a military hero too. A brief outline follows:

Clarke was born in Horley, on the Surrey-Sussex border (now dominated by London Gatwick airport), son of Deborah and James Henry Clarke. He was probably from Jamaica; she was a Jewish Londoner of Russian descent. His father was the managing director of a Horley building company. Their son attended Reigate grammar school into 1939, won a scholarship to St Catharine’s, Cambridge where he studied law, and attended the army officers’ training college at Sandhurst from 1942, being commissioned into the Royal Irish Fusiliers that year. He served in Tunisia where he was wounded in 1943, and in the campaign from Sicily through to northern Italy probably including Monte Cassino. He was awarded Britain’s second-level military decoration, the Military Cross, which was for officers showing “gallantry during active operations against the enemy”. Over ten thousand MCs were awarded in 1939-1945, and 482 recipients received a second MC – known as having a bar. James Clarke, lieutenant (temporary captain, acting major) was one of these somewhat rare and undoubtedly brave individuals.

Courtesy St Catharine’s College, Cambridge.

Major Clarke, MC and Bar returned to Horley and qualified as a barrister at the Middle Temple in late 1946. In 1949 he married Ilse Cohen. War hero, Cambridge graduate, barrister: Clarke was also active in local matters in Horley, in the Boy Scouts, the Lions charity group, and the Round Table. He worked at the Treasury in London where he became an under secretary in the 1960s. He served on the parish council for seventeen years, and ran the building firm Bishop and Clarke. Incorporated as a limited company in 1938, it survives as Clarke’s General Builders today. He served on the executive committee of the League of Coloured Peoples from 1948 to 1951 having seen that his father subscribed to the LCP from 1938.

His father died on 8 March 1951 and probate records state his address was Deborah, Russells Crescent, Horley (in the town centre) and his widow inherited £28,500. She died in 1984. Ilse and James had relocated to Dormers, Givons Grove, the Downs in Leatherhead in Surrey where he died in 2006.

Clarke’s army number was 228436. His initial award was reported in the London Gazette 20 March 1942, p 1268 and the Bar was reported in the London Gazette 23 March 1944, p 1365. The regimental museum in Northern Ireland has not been approached for images of Clarke.

Most of this information was supplied by David Killingray — many thanks.