Godfrey Bagnall Clarke
Godfrey Bagnall Clarke (c.1742 – 26 December 1774) was a British Member of Parliament for Derbyshire. He lived at Sutton Scarsdale Hall in Derbyshire and was the eldest son of Godfrey Clarke and his wife Anne, the heiress of Radbourne.
He undertook the Grand Tour to Italy. Clarke was elected to Parliament in 1768 in a contested election, defeating one of the sitting MPs, Sir Henry Harpur. His political views are not well recorded; he rarely spoke in the House of Commons, but he was supported by the Derbyshire Tories and tended to vote with the opposition. He was re-elected unopposed in October 1774 but was already ill and died two months later, unmarried and in his early thirties.
His estates at Sutton, Chilcote Hall, and Somersall Hall passed to his sister, who married Joseph Hart Pryce (later Clarke). Their daughter Anna Maria Clarke married Walter Butler, 18th Earl of Ormonde. Clarke was a close friend of historian Edward Gibbon, whom he met on the Grand Tour, and Gibbon drew up his will for him.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 02:30 (CET).