Sir William Clerke, 8th Baronet

Who was Sir William Clerke, 8th Baronet?

Sir William Henry Clerke, 8th Baronet was rector of Bury, Lancashire.

Clerke, of an old Buckinghamshire family, was born 25 November 1751, and received his later education at All Souls College, Oxford. In 1778 he succeeded to the baronetcy on the death of his elder brother Francis, who was the favourite aide-de-camp to General John Burgoyne in North America, and was mortally wounded at Saratoga. When dying, Francis asked Burgoyne to endeavour, on his return to England, to procure preferment for his brother, who had taken orders. The twelfth Earl of Derby, at the instance no doubt of General Burgoyne, who had married the earl's aunt, presented Clerke to the rectory of Bury, to which he was instituted 6 February 1778, taking his Bachelor of Civil Law degree at Oxford in the October following. He paid much attention to the physical health of his parishioners, vaccinating the children of the poor, and even going to Rochdale once a week for a considerable time to perform the same operation. On the occasion of an outbreak of fever he issued, in 1790, 'Thoughts upon the Means of Preserving the Health of the Poor by Prevention and Suppression of Epidemic Fever,' a pamphlet containing useful sanitary suggestions, and a long letter on its subject-matter by the philanthropic Dr. Thomas Percival.