John Henry Clarke M.D. M.B. C.M. (1852 – 24 November 1931) was a British orthodox physician who converted to homeopathy to become consulting physician at the London Homeopathic Hospital, and one of the most influential British homeopaths of all time.

Clarke was a Fellow of the British Homeopathic Society, and was elected Vice-President of the Society in 1888, and President in 1906. Among his many other accolades, Clarke was conferred with the position of honorary president of the Hahnemannian Institute of Brazil, then only the fourth person, and second foreigner, to be so honoured. Clarke was also an extraordinary member of the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh.

J. H. Clarke was a prolific author, publishing more than twenty books and pamphlets, and was a frequent contributor to homeopathic periodicals. In 1883, he became co-editor, alongside Robert Ellis Dudgeon and Richard Hughes, of the British Journal of Homeopathy. Two years later, in 1885, he succeeded James Compton Burnett as senior editor of The Homeopathic World. Clarke remained as editor of the journal for the next twenty three years, before handing the responsibility over to Charles Edwin Wheeler. Clarke thereafter assumed the role of consulting editor, but returned once again as senior editor for another six years, until his death in 1931.

Like many homeopaths, J. H. Clarke was a committed anti-vivisectionist. He was a member of the central executive committee of the Victoria Street and International Society for the Protection of Animals from Vivisection (later, The National Anti-Vivisection Society), founded in 1875 by Irish reformer Francis Power Cobbe. Clarke quoted a passage from Cobbe’s essay, “Sacrificial Medicine,” in which she describes Hahnemann as “that great Deliverer,” in his 1886 lecture, The Revolution in Medicine.

Clarke was also the publisher of The British Guardian, and was the Chairman and Vice President of The Britons organization. Clarke was called upon to give evidence in the Noel Pemberton Billing libel case in 1918 (*see below).

John Henry Clarke was a student of Edward William Berridge, and he taught many lay homeopaths, including James Ellis Barker, Ephraim Connor, Edward W Cotter, John DaMonte, Thomas Maughan, Noel Puddephatt, Phyllis M Speight, Edwin D W Tomkins, Canon Roland Upcher, Frank Parker Wood, and he was a colleague of Edward Bach, Marjorie Blackie, James Compton Burnett, Robert Thomas Cooper, James Douglas Kenyon, Percival George Quinton, Thomas Skinner, John Weir, Charles Edwin Wheeler, Thomas Simpson, and many others. As a teacher at the London Homeopathic Hospital, Clarke taught Marjorie Blackie.

John Henry Clarke also met regularly with Robert Thomas Cooper, James Compton Burnett, Thomas Skinner, and other members of the so-called “Cooper Club.”

John Henry Clarke was born in Lincoln in the final quarter of 1852, the eldest son of Nottinghamshire-born accountant Henry Clark (c. 1822 – 1898) and Sarah “Sally” Shooter Jackson (1825 – 1914).

John H. Clarke decided on a career in medicine and in 1875, while residing at Southpark, Lincoln, he qualified with a bachelors in medicine and a masters in surgery from the University of Edinburgh. Two years later, in 1877, he obtained his M.D. from the same institution.

On completion of his studies in 1875, Clarke was appointed by the New Zealand government as surgical superintendent for the emigrant ship Peter Denny.

Clarke’s first encounter with, and embrace of, homeopathy was recounted in his 1905 book, Homeopathy Explained. In chapter one, titled “How I Became a Homeopath,” he wrote:

“Perhaps it may not be uninteresting to readers if I state at the outset of how my own conversion to homeopathy came about. As is usually the case, I knew nothing whatsoever about homeopathy when I took a degree in surgery, since it is rarely mentioned by professors in the ordinary medical school, and then only to be misrepresented.

After my graduation as a western medical doctor at Edinburgh Medical School, by the advice of the late Angus Macdonald (one of the best friends I ever had), I took a voyage to New Zealand in charge of emigrants.

On my return, having fixed on Liverpool as a likely field in which to start practice, I asked Angus Macdonald to introduce me to some of leading doctors in that city. This he promised to do, and eventually he did – I have the letter to this day.

They were never presented, for the reasons which will be appreciated. The relatives with whom I was staying happened to be homeopaths; and they suggested that I might do worse then to go to the Homeopathic Dispensary in Hardman Street [Liverpool] and see what was being done there.

As the letters came not, by way of utilizing my time I went. Like Caesar, I not only “went,” but I “saw;” but here the parallel ended – I did not conquer; instead homeopathy conquered me!

I may say that at this period, having absorbed over 80% (if marks go for anything) of the drug lore Sir Robert Christian had to impart, and having had sufficient opportunity for testing its value in practice, I had come pretty near the conclusion Oliver Wendell Holmes arrived at and put so neatly in his well-known saying, “If all drugs were cast into the sea, it would be so much better for man and so much the worse for the fish.”

I believed then (and the belief has become rather fashionable since) that the chief function of a medical man was to find out what was the matter with people – if he could; and supply them with common sense – if he happened to posses any. With duty to treat people; to cure them was out of the question; and it would be the better for his honesty if he made no pretense to it.

After a few weeks of observation at the Liverpool Homeopathic Dispensary, a case was presented to me in private. A small boy of five, a relative of my own, was brought to me by his mother. Two years before, he had been badly scratched on the forehead by a cat, and when the scratches healed, a crop of warts appeared on the site of them. And there they remained up to that time in spite of diligent treatment by the family doctor.

As an allopath I could do no more than he, so I turned to homeopathy to see if that could help me. I consulted the authorities, and found that the principal drug which is credited with producing crops of warts is Thuja Occidentalis.

I ordered this, more by way of experiment than expecting much result; but I said, if there was truth in homeopathy, it ought to cure. In a few days improvement was manifest; in three weeks the warts were all gone. Rightly or wrongly I attributed, and still attribute the result to Thuja, through it will no doubt be said that “charms” have done the same way.

Very well, if any one will give me a system of charms that I can use with precision and produce with it such definite effects, and better, I shall be very glad to try it. As it was, I concluded that if homeopathy could give me results like that, homeopathy was the system for me.”

Following his conversion, Clarke practiced in Ipswich, at 83 Berners Street, where he was in partnership with homeopath William Roche.

In 1877, Clarke studied at the London School of Homoeopathy, held at the London Homeopathic Hospital, where he was awarded a £10 prize for achieving the best examination results in materia medica, therapeutics, and homeopathic practice.

Clarke was a regular attendee and participant at many homeopathic meetings. In September 1879, he attended the British Homoeopathic Congress, held at the Imperial Hotel in Great Malvern. He was also a participant at the 1881 International Homoeopathic Convention in London, the 1885 British Homeopathic Congress, held in Norwich and, at the 1886 International Convention, held at the Schweizerhof Hotel in Basle, he was elected as Treasurer and Assistant Secretary. By the time of the 8th Quinquennial International Homeopathic Congress, held again in London, in July, 1911, John Henry Clarke had become the permanent secretary of the newly established Liga Medicorum Homoeopathica Internationalis.

Towards the end of 1880, Clarke relocated to London, and that year he was admitted as a member of the British Homeopathic Society, serving on the Society council in 1889-1890, and was elected President in 1906.

John Henry Clarke was a staunch and vocal advocate for homeopathy. In 1888, he published Odium Medicum and Homeopathy, in which he recounted the clashes in print that ensued after Edmund Becket, Lord Grimthorpe, wrote to The Times in 1888 to protest against the prejudice of allopathic physicians in dismissing Kenneth William Millican from his position at Queen’s Jubilee Hospital due to his liberal attitude towards homeopathy. This resulted in a month long battle of words in The Times. At the close of this controversy, on 20th January 1888, The London Times wrote:

“… So great has been the interest excited by the correspondence, that the editor has been unable to publish only a fraction of the letters sent him. The original contention was that an Odium Medicum exists, exactly analogous to the Odium Theologicum of a less enlightened age, and no less capable of blinding men…”

In January 1889, Clarke was one of young homeopath Henri Eugene Husson‘s attendants during his final illness, alongside William Bradshaw and Robert Ellis Dudgeon.

In June 1895, Clarke was one of the guest speakers on the platform at the twentieth annual meeting of the Victoria Street Society (later renamed the National Anti-Vivisection Society), held at St. Martin’s Town Hall, Charing Cross, London. Among the audience members was Dr. Mary Jane Hall Williams, the first qualified woman homeopathic physician to practice in the United Kingdom, and her husband, both active anti-vivisectionists.

By 1905, Clarke was one of many homeopaths bemoaning the lack of adequate training in homeopathy. He began to train lay practitioners, and to raise funds for a Professorship in Homeopathic Therapeutics, in memory of James Compton Burnett. The British Homeopathic Association set out to meet the challenge of Clarke’s criticisms. Clarke dedicated his book Homeopathy Explained to the British Homeopathic Association.

Clarke was also one of the main figures in the so-called “Cooper Club.” This small group of leading British homeopaths, centred around the figure of Robert Thomas Cooper, and that also included James Compton Burnett, Thomas Skinner, met and dined together regularly from 1880 into the twentieth century, discussing homeopathy and sharing notes and experiences. After the deaths of Burnett, Cooper, and finally Skinner, in 1906, Clarke led the club into the new century:

…. after the death of Thomas Skinner in 1906, John Henry Clarke continued the tradition by maintaining vigorous links with other major British homeopaths and by having regular meetings for the discussion of new ideas and of cases.

These meetings continuing after 1906 were with a select band of people who were in effect tutored by John Henry Clarke in all aspects of homeopathy. This also took place outside the British Homeopathic Society, with which John Henry Clarke more or less severed all contact after 1908. It also included several people who were medically unqualified amateur practitioners.

This group included Noel Puddephatt, Canon Roland Upcher and James Ellis Barker, who, as proteges of John Henry Clarke, soon became important torch bearers for the movement well into the twentieth century…

Dr.s John Weir and Charles Edwin Wheeler were also members. One suspects that Edward Bach, James Douglas Kenyon, Percival George Quinton and several others were also members, and taught lay persons, though there is no direct evidence and an air of secrecy shrouds the group. The Club continued to meet into the 1930s under John Henry Clarke and Charles Edwin Wheeler…

According to homeopathic scholar Peter Morrell, towards the end of the first decade of the 20th century, Clarke became increasingly disillusioned with his medical homeopathic colleagues and spearheaded the training of lay/professional homeopaths that would reopen a longstanding schism within British homeopathy:

John Henry Clarke... established himself as a very successful and highly influential London homeopath in the 1870s. But he ‘fell out’ with figures like Richard Hughes and Robert Ellis Dudgeon, who controlled the movement, to such an extent that all offices became closed to him, except the editorship of The Homeopathic World….

…. he was wholly disenchanted with the direction English homeopathy had taken. He disliked the way it eventually failed to continue challenging allopathy or winning many new converts to its dwindling ranks – especially after 1900. And it seemed to lack the will for a good fight. It simply ‘gave up’ in his view and came to occupy an all too cosy niche within Victorian society, conveniently devoting itself to serving solely the rich upper classes.

…. he started to teach laypersons all about homeopathy [e.g. Canon Roland Upcher, Noel Puddephatt, and James Ellis Barker], towards whom many of his books were directed, and he became increasingly convinced that its future lay with them rather than with servile doctors who had ‘sold out’ to allopathy.

Single handedly, by the 1920s, John Henry Clarke had created a completely divided movement, composed of doctors on the one hand, and lay practitioners on the other. And it was mainly the latter who carried British homeopathy forward throughout the dismal 1930s, 40s and 50s, their light never dimming.

It is quite true that Clarke was a typical early century right wing fascist and an anti Semite, which does not endear him to anyone today. How weird, therefore, that he formed such a fruitful allegiance with James Ellis Barker, who was a left winger [and Jewish]? Barker was handed the editorship of The Homeopathic World in the spring of 1932, just after John Henry Clarke died, and this brilliantly stage managed act caused great ripples of embarrassment to flow through UK homeopathy; a pervasive horror, really, that this prestigious position hadn’t been passed, as expected, to another doctor, but to a lay practitioner and a German immigrant to boot! How sweet John Henry Clarke’s revenge must have been, even from the grave! He must have lain smiling in his coffin.

With some justification, John Henry Clarke regarded his fellow doctor homeopaths as the vilest of traitors to homeopathy, who had succeeded only in turning themselves into the easily manipulated and servile puppets of their rich aristocratic clientele. He regarded them with enormous contempt. Thus we can justly regard John Henry Clarke as the single most important English homeopath of this century and truly the darling of the movement. In terms of bold and experimental ideas and methods; for his writings; for his fierce independence; his great energy, which he poured into homeopathy with abandon; as a political force within the movement; and finally for his deep radicalism regarding lay practice, he towers like a colossus over all the rest. From him flows nearly every tradition or strand within the fabric of modern British homeopathy, other than Kentianism.

Yet it is surely a very rich irony, that a right wing fascist should come to be the one who turned his back on the stuffy homeopathic establishment, accusing them of humbug in their failure to give homeopathy to the masses! Ironic also that it took his alliance with the Marxist, James Ellis Barker, to establish a new lineage of British homeopathy, wholly devoid of any roots within the class system, and thus to truly transform it into a ‘tool of liberation,’ Ivan Illich style.

Whatever else we might think of him as a human being, if it weren’t for the wayward John Henry Clarke, and the laypersons he taught, there would be precious little homeopathy practiced in the UK today; it would still be the exclusive and minority preserve of the stuffy old rich and titled. It was John Henry Clarke who broke the mold and it was his lay practitioners who have revived its fortunes in recent years.

John Henry Clarke died on 24 November 1931. His Obituary, written by Dr. Harold Fergie Woods, was published in The Homeopathic World, in January 1932:

Dr. John Henry Clarke passed on to the Great Beyond on Tuesday, November 24, 1931, after a life of extraordinary devotion and usefulness to Homoeopathy. His memory will live on imperishable in every quarter of the globe through his written words.

Anyone who had met Clarke but a few times, even only once, must have been impressed with the feeling of an exceptional human being, a forceful personality, a man apart.

He was literally a man apart, as he took his work and his mission so seriously that he gave himself very little time to mix with others. Perhaps, also, there were very few with whom he felt in harmony.

He was a prodigious worker, as his published works testify, to say nothing of the hosts of private patients from all parts of the world. He was editor of The Homeopathic World for altogether twenty nine years.

He was indeed an outstanding character, and if one can compare him with another, it is with him who was probably the greatest homeopath that the United States has produced James Tyler Kent.

They had the same forcible way of expressing themselves combined with an inherent retiring nature, the same intolerance of anything second rate, especially as relating to their beloved system of therapeutics, the same scorn and contempt for time servers.

And each gave to the world of Homeopathy the greatest and most valuable book that their respective countries have produced, indeed, in our opinion, the two most indispensable works written since the days of Samuel Hahnemann – the Dictionary of Materia Medica and the Repertory of Materia Medica.

Clarke is not dead.

How can a man whose work is, and always will be, a continual source of inspiration to thousands – how can such a man ever die ?

Select Publications:

Of interest:

John Say Clarke M.D. M.R.C.S. L.S.A. (1812 – 22 December 1898) [no evident relation], was an orthodox physician who converted to homeopathy. He was a council member of the Hahnemann Medical Society and participated in a Festival in aid of the London Homeopathic Hospital in 1853. Although not an active member of the homeopathic medical community, he left his fortune, amounting to almost £14,000, to the Hospital. John Say Clarke practiced at 1 Cannonbury Park, Islington until his retirement to Ryde, Isle of Wight, in the 1870s. His son, John Money Clarke (1836 – 1869) was a surgeon with the Chilean Navy.

Addendum:

*Philip Hoare, in Wilde’s last stand: decadence, conspiracy & the First World War, claims that John Henry Clarke was a founder member of The Vigilantes, alongside his colleague Noel Pemberton Billing, and that John Henry Clarke was also an advocate of Malthusian ideas. However, there appears to be no evidence to suggest that Clarke was ever a member of The Vigilantes, let alone a founder. Indeed, the report of the Billing’s Trial lists the original founding documentation of The Vigilantes, and John Henry Clarke is not mentioned among the list of officers.

Recent scholarly research has begun to reassess John Henry Clarke’s life and career. His personal tutelage of, and friendship with, the Jewish socialist homeopath and historian, James Ellis Barker, is just one of many incongruities in the conventional portrayal of Clarke as a virulent anti-semite that are now being challenged. Barker, who succeeded Clarke as editor of The Homeopathic World in February 1932, explicitly acknowledged his friendship with Clarke in his 1939 book, My Testament of Healing.