Description:
The marble memorial is in the church of St Mary Magdalene, Wethersfield, on the north wall.
The memorial commemorates Joseph Clerke and all of his children, including Charles Clerke, it is decorated with a shield bearing the arms of the Clerke family.
History:
Captain Charles Clerke died 29th August 1779 while on Captain James Cook’s third voyage around the world and was buried at Kamchatka, Russia.
On Cook’s death on 14th February 1779 it was Charles Clerke who took command of the Resolution and the expedition, until his own death six and a half months later.
Inscription:
On the memorial:
To the memory of JOSEPH CLERKE, Esqr.
who died July 24 1790, Ætat. 81
For more than half a century an inhabitant of this village
and in the Commission of the Peace;
he was regarded as an useful Magistrate
& a man of singular Benevolence;
in whom the Poor & Indigent every found a Friend:
In the same Grave lie the remains of Anne his Wife,
who died in Child-bed of her 12th Child, Feb 14, 1747.
Four of their Children died in their Infancy and of those
who attained mature Years; Sir JOHN CLERKE Knt their elder
Son, was a Captain in the Royal Navy, & died at Madrass.
Sept. 1776. JOSEPH, their 2d Son died at Abingdon Cambridgeshire
April 18 1784, WILLIAM, their 3d son, died Jan 2 1753 and is
buried near this Stone. CHARLES, their 4th son, was a Cap-
tain in the Royal Navy, who after having with equal Honour
to himself & his Country, completed three Voyages round
the World, died in attempting a fourth with Captain James Cook.
and was buried at Kamtschatka, August 29 1779. THOMAS
their 5TH son, was sometime Chaplain to the English Factory
at Surat, and died there, 1773.
Reader, in this Example of a Father living to lament
over five Sons, who had brighten’d the Prospect of his
advancing Years, see the Vanity of Human Hopes, and
look for permant Felicity beyond the Grave
Near this stone lieth Enterr’d also the body of SARAH CLERKE
the last survivor of the family of JOSEPH & ANNE CLERKE
who departed this life the 16th Feby 1818 aged 74 years
Who by Will, left to the Trustees of M. Dorothy Motts School, of this
Place the Reversion of £360 in Furtherance of that Charity
GPS Coordinates: 51.953450, 0.489231
References:
Cook’s Log, page 1341, vol. 19, no. 4 (1996)
Cook’s Log, page 1364, vol. 20, no. 1 (1997)
Cook’s Log, page 44, vol. 31, no. 3 (2008)
Cook’s Log, page 2, vol. 34, no. 4 (2011)