Extract from
Horsfield's History of SussexWilliam Clarke, the son of a respectable yeoman in Shropshire, was born at Hagmon Abbey, now within the boundaries of Sundbourne Park, in that county, in the year 1696. After having obtained the rudiments of a liberal education at Shrewsbury school, he removed in 1713 to St. John's College, Cambridge, of which Society he was elected fellow in 1716-17, at the early age of twenty years. In 1724, after having been successively chaplain to Dr. Adam Ottley, Bishop of St. David's, and to Thomas Holles, Duke of Newcastle, he was presented to the rectory of Buxted by Archbishop Wake. In 1738, he obtained the prebend of Hora Villa, in the church of Chichester, and in 1770 he was installed chancellor of that cathedral. “Though his income was never large,” says his biographer, “it was his custom to devote a shilling in every guinea to the service of the poor.” His principal work is “The Connexion of the Roman, Saxon, and English Coins.”
Mr Clarke, after having held the living of Buxted for forty-four years, resigned it to his son in 1768, and retired to Chichester, where he died in 1711. A Latin tribute to his memory, composed by his son, is inscribed on a tablet affixed to the eastern wall of the chancel in Buxted church.
