Ralph Clarke (British politician)
British politician (1892–1970)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Colonel Sir Ralph Stephenson Clarke, KBE, TD, DL (17 August 1892 – 9 May 1970)[1] was a British Conservative Party politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for East Grinstead from 1936 to 1955.
17 August 1892
Ralph Clarke | |
|---|---|
| Member of Parliament for East Grinstead | |
| In office 1936–1955 | |
| Preceded by | Henry Cautley |
| Succeeded by | Evelyn Emmet |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Ralph Stephenson Clarke 17 August 1892 |
| Died | 9 May 1970 (aged 77) |
| Citizenship | United Kingdom |
| Party | Conservative |
| Spouse |
Rebekah Mary Buxton (m. 1921) |
| Children | Three |
He was elected to the House of Commons at a by-election in July 1936, after East Grinstead's Conservative MP Henry Cautley was ennobled as Baron Cautley.[2] Clarke held the seat until he stood down at the 1955 general election.[3]
He was appointed as a Deputy Lieutenant (DL) of Sussex in 1932,[4] and in the 1955 New Year Honours, he was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE), "for political and public services".[5]
Family
Clarke, the son of Colonel Stephenson Clarke, was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, where he was awarded a first-class degree in natural sciences in 1913.[6] He married Rebekah Mary Buxton, daughter of Gerald Buxton and Lucy Ethel Pease, on 15 December 1921, and they had three children.[7] His wife was from the Pease family of Darlington; Lucy's father was Joseph Whitwell Pease and her maternal grandfather was Alfred Fox, who created Glendurgan Garden.
The Stephenson Clarkes were the founders[8] in 1730 of Stephenson Clarke Shipping, Britain's oldest shipping company.[9] In 1892, Ralph Clarke's father purchased a 200-acre (0.81 km2) estate at Borde Hill, near Haywards Heath in West Sussex, and from about 1912 began collecting trees and shrubs began by financing plant-collecting expeditions to the Himalayas and China.[10] Ralph Clarke took up residence there is 1949, after the death of his father, and opened the gardens to the public in 1965.[10]
