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Cecil Belfield Clarke

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For the soldier and inventor, see Cecil Vandepeer Clarke. For the Canadian politician, see Cecil Clarke.

Cecil Belfield Clarke
Clarke, date unknown
Born(1894-04-12)12 April 1894
Barbados
Died28 November 1970(1970-11-28) (aged 76)
St Stephen's Hospital, Barnet, London
EducationCombermere School, Barbados
Alma materSt Catharine's College, University of Cambridge
OccupationPhysician

Cecil Belfield Clarke (also known as Belfield Clarke) (12 April 1894 – 28 November 1970) was a Barbadian-born physician who qualified in the United Kingdom and practised near the Elephant & Castle in London. He was a Pan-Africanist and was one of the founders of the League of Coloured Peoples in 1931.

Early life

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Little is known of Clarke's early life. He attended Combermere School in Barbados.[1] He won an island scholarship to study medicine at Cambridge University.[2] He arrived in London on 28 September 1914, just after the outbreak of World War I, having travelled on the RMS Tagus,[3] which, after this journey, became a hospital ship.[4] Other passengers included Aucher Warner, cricketer and future Attorney-General of Trinidad and Tobago; the colonial administrator Herbert Peebles; Kenneth Knaggs, the son of Sir Samuel Knaggs, the Colonial Secretary of Trinidad and Tobago at the time; Roland Allport, a medical practitioner; Thomas Orford, the Government medical officer for Grenada; and Richard Batson, who played cricket for Barbados and qualified as a medical practitioner in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1920.[5]

Career

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Clarke went to St Catharine's College, Cambridge, and was awarded a BA in 1917. He remained a devoted member of the College community, being President of the College Society in 1965–66[6] and thereafter one of the Vice-Presidents until his death in 1970.[7][8][9][10][11][12] He endowed a prize for Natural Sciences, which was first awarded in 1955.[13] The Belfield Clarke Prize is still awarded by the college.[14]

Clarke qualified in 1918 with the Conjoint Diploma (MRCS (Eng) and LRCP (Lond)), in 1919 as DPH, in 1920 as BChir, and in 1921 as FRCS (Edin) and MB (Cambridge).[15][16] In 1923 ,he was in London at University College Hospital.[17] By at least 1924 he was practising in Southwark at 112 Newington Causeway SE1, where he would practise for the rest of his professional career,[18] although he may have practised there as early as 1920.[19]

He practised at Newington Causeway throughout World War II, despite the heavy bombardment of the area.[19] In 1941, the area was so badly bombed that 112 Newington Causeway remained the only building standing in the row of shops and houses; one wall of his surgery was open to the elements.[20] At the time of the 1950 Ordnance Survey, 112 Newington Causeway remained on its own, surrounded by bombsites.[21] Clarke retired in 1965, and 112 Newington Causeway was demolished after that.

He was a member of the Council of the British Medical Association from 1954 to 1967.[15]

Clark's rule

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Main article: Clark's rule

Clarke developed the misnamed Clark's rule, a mathematical formula used to calculate the proper dosage of medicine for children aged 2–17.[22]

Pan-Africanism

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Clarke was one of the founders of the civil-rights organization the League of Coloured Peoples along with another South London medical practitioner, Harold Moody, in 1931, and was a member of the League's executive committee.[23] Other early members included C. L. R. James, Jomo Kenyatta, Una Marson, and Paul Robeson. Clarke hosted garden parties at his house in Barnet for the League.[24][25]

He was elected the first chair of the House Committee of Aggrey House, a hostel established in London in 1934 for students from Africa and the Caribbean.[26]

In the 1930s Clarke was also active in the International African Service Bureau, with C. L. R. James and George Padmore, a London-based organisation intended to address issues relating to Africa and the African diaspora.[27]

Clarke wrote the obituary for the Pan-Africanist activist George Padmore in The Times in 1959. He was active in the West African Students' Union (WASU), which helped influence Ghanaian nationalism.[28] Through WASU, Clarke became acquainted with the American Pan-Africanist W. E. B. Du Bois. The University of Massachusetts Amherst holds Du Bois's papers, which include an extensive correspondence with Clarke. The letters invariably end "with greetings to Pat".[29] Clarke was active in Ghanaian medical circles: he was Chairman of the Ghana Medical Advisory Committee, and wrote letters to the British Medical Journal (BMJ) about independent Ghana's first medical school, the University of Ghana Medical School.[30]

Clarke kept an open house for West Indians at his home in Barnet on Sunday afternoons.[31]

Personal life

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Clarke was homosexual. As was usual before decriminalisation in 1967, Clarke was discreet. His lifelong partner was Pat Walker (Edward George Walker, 1902–1999), whom Clarke employed as his secretary.[19] By at least 1939 they were living together in Clarke's house in Barnet, which Clarke called Belfield House,[32] but they had both been on the electoral register at 112 Newington Causeway in 1929.[33] After Clarke's death, Walker remained at Belfield House, but after the latter's death in 1999, it was left to St Catharine's College.[34] The college has since sold the house, and it is now a nursery, Belfield Montessori.[35]

Clarke died in 1970, aged 76, at St Stephen's Hospital, Barnet.[36] (St Stephen's was a geriatric hospital that closed in 1989.[37] Clarke's obituary in the BMJ incorrectly states that he died in Barnet General Hospital.)[15]

Legacy

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A blue plaque honouring Clarke was placed on a building near the site of his practice in April 2023,[38] sponsored by Black History Walks in collaboration with the Nubian Jak Community Trust.[39] The prize that Clarke endowed at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, continues to be awarded. He was one of the Black Londoners featured in an exhibition at the Cuming Museum in 2008, curated by the historian Stephen Bourne, Keep Smiling Through: Black Londoners on the Home Front, 1939 to 1945.[40] Belfield Clarke was one of the figures highlighted by LGBT History Month UK in February 2024, in connection to that year's theme: Medicine.

References

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  1. ^ "St Catharine's College, Cambridge: Cecil Belfield Clarke". Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  2. ^ Dabydeen, David; John Gilmore; Cecily Jones (eds.). "Cecil Belfield Clarke". The Oxford Companion to Black British History | Oxford Reference. Archived from the original on 9 February 2018. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  3. ^ "Tagus ship's manifest via Ancestry". Retrieved 12 January 2021.
  4. ^ "Clyde Ships: RMS Tagus". Retrieved 10 January 2021.
  5. ^ "Tagus ship's manifest via Ancestry". Retrieved 12 January 2021.
  6. ^ "Election of Officers, the Benevolent Fund and Honoraria" (PDF). St Catharine's College Society Magazine: 18. September 1965. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  7. ^ "Officers of the Society 1966–67" (PDF). St Catharine's College Society Magazine: 5. September 1966. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  8. ^ "Officers of the Society 1967–68" (PDF). St Catharine's College Society Magazine: 5. September 1967. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  9. ^ "Officers of the Society 1968–69" (PDF). St Catharine's College Society Magazine: 5. September 1968. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  10. ^ "Officers of the Society 1969–70" (PDF). St Catharine's College Society Magazine: 5. September 1969. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  11. ^ "Officers of the Society 1970–71" (PDF). St Catharine's College Society Magazine: 5. September 1970. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  12. ^ "Obituaries | CECIL BELFIELD CLARKE Died—28th November 1970" (PDF). St Catharine's College Society Magazine: 22. September 1971. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  13. ^ "College Awards" (PDF). St Catherine's Society Magazine: 68. September 1955.
  14. ^ "Cecil Belfield Clarke (1894–28 November 1970) | Our Black History". St Catharine's College, Cambridge. 9 September 2020. Archived from the original on 31 October 2020. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  15. ^ a b c "Obituary: C Belfield Clarke". British Medical Journal. 4 (5738): 808. 26 December 1970.
  16. ^ Medical Register, 1931.
  17. ^ Medical Register, 1923.
  18. ^ In 1924 he gave his address as 112 Newington Causeway on a ship's manifest. "Find My Past: Van Rensselaer". Retrieved 12 January 2021.
  19. ^ a b c Bourne, Stephen (2020). Under Fire: Black Britain in Wartime, 1939–45. The History Press. pp. 91–92.
  20. ^ Bourne (2020). Under Fire: Black Britain in Wartime, 1939–45. p. 92.
  21. ^ "National Library of Scotland: TQ3179SE". Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  22. ^ "The Free Dictionary: Clark's Rule". Retrieved 12 January 2021.
  23. ^ "Spartacus Educational: Harold Moody". Retrieved 12 January 2021.
  24. ^ Adi, Hakim; Marika Sherwood (2003). "Harold Moody". Pan-African History: Political Figures from Africa and the Diaspora Since 1787.
  25. ^ Whittall, Daniel James (2012). Creolising London: Black West Indian activism and the politics of race and empire in Britain, 1931-1948 (PDF) (Thesis). University of London.
  26. ^ Soverall, Lisa (7 October 2020). "Dr. Cecil Belfield Clarke (1894–1970)". Southwark Heritage Blog. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
  27. ^ Matera, Marc (2015). Black London: The Imperial Metropolis And Decolonization In The Twentieth Century. University of California Press. p. 37. ISBN 978-0-520-95990-3.
  28. ^ "History of Ghana's Independence". Ghana Today online. 6 March 2012. Archived from the original on 30 May 2017. Retrieved 12 January 2021.
  29. ^ "UMass Amherst: W.E.B. Du Bois Papers". Retrieved 12 January 2021.
  30. ^ Clarke, C. Belfield (7 July 1962). "Health in Ghana". British Medical Journal. 2 (5296): 49–50. doi:10.1136/bmj.2.5296.49-b. JSTOR 20373975. S2CID 73357409.
  31. ^ "Distinguished W.I. Doctor". The Barbados Advocate. 26 January 1950. p. 2.
  32. ^ "1939 Register via Ancestry". Retrieved 12 January 2021.
  33. ^ "London Electoral Register, 1929, via Ancestry". Retrieved 12 January 2021.
  34. ^ London Borough of Barnet, planning decision notice, 26 October 1999.
  35. ^ "Belfield Montessori". Retrieved 12 January 2021.
  36. ^ Barnet Registry Office, December 1970 quarter, Vol 5a, page 198.
  37. ^ "Lost Hospitals of London: St Stephen's Hospital". Retrieved 10 January 2021.
  38. ^ Shepherd, Alison (22 April 2023). "Blue plaque honours pioneering GP". British Medical Journal. 381: 869. doi:10.1136/bmj.p869. PMID 37076139. S2CID 258190047.
  39. ^ "Pioneering alumnus celebrated with blue plaque". St Catharine's College, Cambridge. 13 April 2023. Retrieved 6 May 2023.
  40. ^ "Keep Smiling Through: Black Londoners on the Home Front, 1939 to 1945 : Resource Pack : April 1 to November 1 2008" (PDF). Cuming Museum, Southwark Council. 2008. Archived (PDF) from the original on 14 January 2021. Retrieved 12 January 2021.
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