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]
