Clarkes

Bill:

Welcome to Ireland Reaching Out!

The RC parish for Fethard would be Templetown and records go back to the late 1700s. I searched on Roots Ireland and was unable to find any baptismal records or the marriage record. I also searched on the FindMyPast data base with no success. Possibly the events occurred in a different parish which does not have records back to the first part of the 19th century. 

Here is the parish register  https://registers.nli.ie/parishes/0608   You may want to scan the register to see if you can find any family records.

You are also welcome to post the family story on our XO Chronicles site https://www.irelandxo.com/ireland-xo/history-and-genealogy/ancestor-dat…

You may also want to consider autosomal DNA testing.

Roger McDonnell

Hi Billie

Here is a summary of the information I have been able to gather on the Clarke family of the Hook Peninsula, County Wexford, including Fethard, Tintern, and Bealistown. Please see the attachment.

Also attached are photos of 2 old Clarke gravestones from St. Mogues' church, Fethard. Zoom in to see the inscriptions.

Best wishes

Your very distant cousin

Phil Clarke

More photos of the gravestones in St. Mogues churchyard

Clarke Family of Fethard, County Wexford

Two brothers, Charles and Richard emigrated to India.  Both changed their names to Clarke Bell although some references reverse this to Bell Clarke.

Charles was born about 1798, a master mariner with the HEIC.  He was based in Calcutta.  He owned two barques,  Mercury and Agnes.  Married Anne Moore(1805-1876) at Calcutta Cathedral 22nd December 1828.

Children:

William Henry 1829-1876 Indigo  Planter in Burdwan India, married Eugenie Eliza Antoine Durn(1841-1924 Calcutta Cathedral 20th Nov 1855, he was buried Calcutta 27th December age 47

Hannah 1831-1897 married Henry Cutcliffe Gamble a Master Mariner Calcutta 2nd November 1846 and had 6 children,  Hannah died in Southampton 28th September 1897 and was buried at Shirley Parish Church. A partial and incorrect transcription of her MI exists in Southampton Archives.

Christine 1833, of whom no further information.

Eliza Hester 1833-1908 married Alfred Cunningham Dando(-1877) a Master in the Indian Navy.  They had a large family in India and England.  She died at Hove Sussex 11th March 1908.

The Mercury was lost of the west coast of Australia in 1833 with all hands.  On receiving confirmation, Charles died of apoplexy 26th Oct 1834.  He was buried in South Park Cemetery, Calcutta.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/163797688/charles-clarke-bell

Notices of his death,  as Charles Bell Clarke, appeared in Waterford Mail 7th May 1834 and Waterford Chronicle 10th May 1834 stating that he was the son of William Clarke late of Feathard and brother of Waterford citizens, George and Pierse Clarke.

From notices in the Waterford press it appears that Pierse Clarke was a Saddler and George Clarke an Auctioneer.

Richard Clarke Bell born 1805, married 12th May 1828 Calcutta Cathedral Theresa Dombal 1811-1881.  He was an Indigo Planter, Calcutta.  Had four daughters, Louisa Maria 1831, Charlotte Amanda 1834, Maria Theresa 1837-1915, Frances Matilda 1847

Richard died 16th April 1873, buried 17th April General Episcopal Cemetery, Chowringhee, Calcutta.  His widow died 1st Sep 1881, Darjeeling, buried St Andrew Church, Darjeeling 2nd Sept.

Charlotte married Arthur Disney Dunne 15th Dec 1858, Fort William Calcutta 

(see Dunne Pedigree in

A genealogical and heraldic history of the landed gentry of Ireland

, dau. of Richard Clarke Bell. of Fethard, co. Wexford, and of Muddenderry, Bengal)

George Clarke of Waterford

Waterford Mail of 27th October 1832 “NEW AUCTION ROOMS, AND GENERAL FANCY BAZAAR, (opposite the commercial hotel), MALL. WATERFORD. GEORGE CLARKE, AUCTIONEER, APPRAISER, and VALUATOR, MOST respectfully takes leave to intimate to the Nobility, Gentry, Merchants, and other Inhabitants of Waterford”

LONDON COMMISSION BAZAAR, Custom-House Quay, Waterford.   He was a tenant of the Waterford Mail

Notices of his sales and a lottery that he ran continue in the Mail until 1840 when he died in June

 Waterford Mail June 6th 1840 announced his death “Wednesday morning, at his residence. Custom house Quay, after a short illness of intestinal inflammation, Mr. George Clarke, of the London Commission Bazaar. His remains were removed for interment yesterday morning to Fethard church yard, county Wexford 

Notices of his sales then continue for some years

Pierse Clarke of Waterford

Waterford Mail 10th March 1824 gives his address also at the Mall, Waterford.

Waterford Mail 9th April 1828 appointed Church warden of Trinity Church

Latest reference is on 13th January 1836 referring to the death of Colonel Anthony at the house of Pierse Clarke.

Notice of his bankruptcy appear in Saunders Newsletter in 1837 “Pierce Clarke of the City of Waterford Saddler”

There are also subsequent references to a Pierse Clarke Junior of Kilkenny, a saddler who may have been his son.

William Clarke Junior of Waterford

Also of The Mall, Waterford from at least 1824, died in Dublin in April 1835 at Dublin, Mr. William Clarke, jnr., the Mall, Waterford. (Waterford Mail, 8th April 1835)

Conclusions

A William Clarke of Fethard was the father of at least four sons all born in the late 1700s/ early 1800s

Charles 1798-1833

Richard 1805-1873

George died 1840

Pierse living in Waterford between 1824 and 1837 No birth or death dates known.

Potentially William Clarke Junior of The Mall, Waterford, who died in Dublin in April 1835.

There was a William Clarke of Fethard, who was a brewer with two sons, victims of the 1798 rebellion.  One of these sons was named Philip, aged 13 at the time so born about 1785.  A Philip Clarke, born Fethard, Wexford applied to serve in the Royal Marines at Chatham in 1811(when aged 27), may well be the same Philip.  National Archives Kew Ref ADM 157/8/247.

Unless there were two contemporary William Clarkes living in Fethard at that time, it seems reasonable to suppose that Philip was the eldest brother of the other four, of whom, at least one was born between 1785 and 1798.

These brothers were contemporaries of Walter Rothe Clarke(1794-1868), but there is no evidence as to whether they were related, however it is interesting that according to Wikipedia(unverified), his son George Richard Clarke was also an Indigo Planter.  Certainly, a George Richard Clarke was involved in a case of breach of contract of Sadhoo Biswas in 1860, and this was to do with planting Indigo

(Papers Relating to Indigo Cultivation in Bengal - Volume 1 - Page 628

Bengal (India) · 1860)

John,

This is amazing new information on the Clarkes of Fethard, and might explain a question that had long been puzzling me, i.e. how and why George Richard Clarke went to India and became an indigo planter. Your research suggests that he had an uncle and a cousin who were both indigo planters in West Bengal.

There are other possible links: George Richard Clarke was living on 90 Custom House Key, Waterford, in 1842 when his father, Walter Rothe Clarke of Fethard, had fled Ireland due to bad debts according to one of the Waterford papers. This is just two years after Mr. George Clarke, of the London Commission Bazaar, was also living on Custom House Key, Waterford.

I have not found any further definite references to George Richard Clarke until the 1850's from when there are many records for him as an indigo planter in India. My assumption had benn that he had joined the East India Company, who had an office on Custom House Key in Waterford. He may have gone out as a soldier (Walter Rothe Clarke had been a captain in the British army), and served his 12 years and then become and indigo planter at the age of 30.

What is the source for Philip Clarke of Fethard's father being called William?

Phil,

Several sources for Philip Clarke being the son of William the Fethard brewer.The History of The Irish Rebellion in the year 1798 pub 1813 p400

Rebellions: Memoir, Memory, and 1798  Tom Dunne 2004 p202

Rebellion and Remembrance in Modern Ireland Geary 2001 p30

Memoirs of the different Rebellions in Ireland from the arrival of the British  Musgrave 1802 vol II p134, pp404-405

etc  Google  Colfer +Clarke and select Google Books should get you these.  I would start with the earliest. Musgrave was only published 4 years after the event.

John.

John,

None of the book references mention that Philip's father was called William - they only refer to him as 'Mr. Clarke'. The 1851 and 1861 censuses state that Walter Rothe Clarke (from whom I am descended) was born in Feathard, Co. Wexford, and that his wife Sara Murphy was born in Waterford. This confirms the information in a family tree written by my great-grandfather, Geoffrey Rothe Clarke, in the 1930s, and updated in the 1940s, which is attached.

Further confirmation is given in the Waterford Chronicle of 16 July 1842, where we see a Walter R. Clarke, his wife, and son George living in Waterford with close connections to a Paul Murphy. The family tree written by Geoffrey Rothe Clarke would have been based on the information given by his father, George Richard Clarke. The years have proved to be sometimes a few years out, but in general the names are all correct as far as can be verified. I have managed to locate Phineas Murphy senior, and his father Willam Murphy, who were both Waterford wine traders with Bordeaux.

In conclusion, there appear to have been two adults by the name of William Clarke in Fethard/Feathard, Co. Wexford, during the 1790s and early 1800s: one was the father of Richard Clarke born in the late 1780s who married Mary Agar, and Walter Rothe Clarke who married Sara/Sarah Murphy. The other was the father of Charles, Richard, George, Pierse, and potentially also William jnr. Further information is likely available in the original parish records for St. Mogues' church, Fethard, which are still held by the church and were not destroyed at the National Archive in 1921.

Rebellions Memoir Memory and 1798, Dunne 2004

FOUND INSIDE – PAGE 202

... only prominent in the taking of prisoners in Fethard , but also virtual ruler of the village during the brief period of rebel control . Colfer , who was illiterate , had worked for William Clarke , a Protestant maltster and brewer 

Thanks - I missed that. I wonder what Dunne's source is???

Yes.  It needs checking.  

Nice

Nice

A fascinating thread. Would Walter Rothe Clarke and family have been Church of Ireland?