Career
In 1839, Clarke exhibited an antiquarian drawing with the Oxford Society for Promoting the Study of Gothic Architecture.[2] He was made an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in 1841 and a Fellow of the RIBA in 1850.[1] He became a member of the Ecclesiological Society in 1853.[3] He served as Diocesan Surveyor to the sees of Canterbury and Rochester, and from 1871 to the see of St Albans.[1] He was also Consultant Architect to the Charity Commissioners.[1]
In 1852, Clarke published Schools and Schoolhouses: a series of Views, Plans, and Details, for Rural Parishes. In this he condemned the set of model plans issued by the Committee of Council on Education as "unsuitable in every way" and stressed the advantages of employing an architect for every new school, rather than relying on a standardised design:[4]
The plan should always be formed to the site, and reference had to local materials; the design of the school, again, should conform to the materials. Brick and stone each require their separate uses, and so their several applications.[4]
The book included plans of twelve schools he had built in Kent, Essex and Oxfordshire, at Monks Horton, Lydd, Little Bentley, Coggeshall, Clifton Hampton, Coopershall, Wellesborough, Brabourne, Boreham, Foxearth, Hatfield and Leigh (Essex).[5]
He drew up ambitious plans for an extension to the House of Charity in Greek Street Soho, including a chapel, refectory, dormitories and cloisters. Only the chapel (begun 1862) was actually built.[6] His association with commissions in Oxfordshire make it possible that he was the "Joseph Clarke, esq., architect" who presented plans for restoring the gatehouse at Rye, the intended scene of the Rye House Plot, to the Oxford Architectural Society in May 1842.[7]
Clarke exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1845 and 1870. The exhibition catalogues give his address as 1, Lincoln's Inn Fields, from 1845 to 1850; and 13, Stratford Place, thereafter.[8]
He is buried on the eastern side of Highgate Cemetery.
