Sir Clement Clerke, 1st Baronet

Sir Clement Clerke, 1st Baronet (died 1693) was an important (but financially unsuccessful) English entrepreneur, whose greatest achievement was the application of the reverberatory furnace (cupola) to smelting lead and copper, and to remelting pig iron for foundry purposes.

Clement Clerke was the third son of George Clerke of Willoughby, Warwickshire, and was created a baronet shortly after the Restoration. He was married to Sarah, daughter and heiress of George Talbot of Rudge, Shropshire. In 1657, he bought the Launde Abbey estate in Leicestershire in 1658 and this was settled on him and his wife. They had another estate at Notgrove in Gloucestershire.

In the early 1670s, Sir Clement joined various other people in sponsoring Dud Dudley to build a furnace at Dudley to smelt iron using a mixed fuel made from wood and coal. This (uniquely) was to be powered by the strength of men and of horses. By 1674 Sir Clement and John Finch of Dudley were the only partners. Finch had other ironworks, but competition between him and Philip Foley was damaging to them both; this led them to enter into a restrictive agreement as to where they would respectively buy wood and generally limiting their activities. A few months later, John Finch sold all his works to Alderman John Foorth (of London) and Sir Clement Clerke. They also bought wood in the Forest of Dean, bit found that the King's Ironworks there had been sold to Paul Foley for demolition and had to build their own furnace at Linton, Herefordshire. They then brought in further partners including John's brother Dannett Foorth and George Skippe of Ledbury. They also bought further ironworks from Philip Foley. This proved to be a troubled business because Sir Clement borrowed money from moneylenders on the security of his share (in breach of the terms of the partnership agreement). This led Dannett Foorth having him Sir Clement arrested for debt, and George Skippe bailing him out. These difficulties were resolved by the sale of the ironworks in 1676, and the dissolution of the partnership.

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