Basil Fulford Lowther Clarke (6 March 1908 – 27 January 1978) was a priest and architectural historian.[1][2][3][4][5] He served as Secretary of the Oxford Diocesan Advisory Committee for the Care of Churches, a member of the Council for the Care of Churches, on the advisory board for the Care of Redundant Churches and was a member of the Westminster Abbey Architectural Advisory Panel.[6]
Life edit
Basil Fulford Lowther Clarke was born on 6 March 1908, the son of the Rev. W. K. L. Clarke.[1] He was educated at St John's School, Leatherhead and St John's College, Durham.[1] After Durham he trained to be a priest at Cuddesdon Theological College and was ordained in 1932.[1] He served as curate at Coulsdon, Monmouth, Watford and Oxford before being appointed Vicar of Knowl Hill, Berkshire, a position he held from 1944 to 1974.[1]
Clarke and his brother took an early interest in church architecture and were encouraged by their father to record details of any church they visited.[3] Starting as a schoolboy hobby, during his life he prepared over thirty one handwritten books accompanied by nineteen boxes of documents and postcards from churches he had visited.[3] He is reputed to have prepared card indexes on two thirds of the 16,000 churches in Great Britain.[3]
Clarke’s main interest was Victorian church architecture and the gothic revival.[3] His passion for the genre led him to become a writer of books on the subject and he is notable for his book, Church Builders of the 19th Century, which was published in 1938 when Victorian architecture was somewhat ridiculed.[7]
Clarke contributed to the Collins Guide to English Parish Churches by Sir John Betjeman and also wrote about Anglican church architecture outside the British Isles,[8] the Parish Churches of London,[9] The Building of the Eighteenth Century Church and, with Sir John Betjeman, English Churches.[10]
In 1970, Clarke was appointed an honorary Canon of Christ Church, Oxford.[1] On retirement, he concentrated his energies on church architecture and preservation, serving on a number of administrative bodies.[1][4]
Clarke died on 27 January at the age of 69.[1] In 1939 Clarke married Eileen Noel Coates and was survived by her, one son and two daughters.[1]
References edit
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Obituary in The Times, The Rev B. F. L. Clarke, January 31, 1978, p.18
- ^ Who's Who and Who Was Who: For autobiographical information on the noteworthy & famous. Oxford University Press.
- ^ a b c d e "Priest". www.churchtimes.co.uk.
- ^ a b "Basil Fulford Lowther Clarke (1907-1978), historian of ecclesiastical architecture: notebooks and papers". www.nationalarchives.gov.uk.
- ^ Curl, James Stevens; Wilson, Susan (February 26, 2015). The Oxford Dictionary of Architecture. OUP Oxford. ISBN 9780191053856 – via Google Books.
- ^ "CalmView: Overview". archives.lambethpalacelibrary.org.uk.
- ^ Clarke, Basil Fulford Lowther (July 28, 1969). Church builders of the nineteenth century: a study of the Gothic Revival in England. Augustus M. Kelly. OCLC 433738085 – via Open WorldCat.
- ^ Clarke, Basil Fulford Lowther (July 28, 1958). Anglican cathedrals outside the British Isles. S.P.C.K. OCLC 1007154127 – via Open WorldCat.
- ^ Clarke, Basil Fulford Lowther (July 28, 1966). Parish churches of London. OCLC 1039557669 – via Open WorldCat.
- ^ Clarke, Basil Fulford Lowther; Betjeman, John (July 28, 1964). English churches. Vista Books. OCLC 490775077 – via Open WorldCat.