Sir George Sydenham Clarke
|
Lord Sydenham of Combe GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, GBE |
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| 16th Governor of Bombay | |
|
In office 18 October 1907 – 5 April 1913 |
|
| Monarch |
Edward VII (1907–10) George V (1910–13) |
| Preceded by | Lord Lamington |
| Succeeded by | Lord Willingdon |
| 10th Governor of Victoria | |
|
In office 28 September 1901 – 24 November 1903 |
|
| Premier |
Sir Alexander Peacock (1901–02) William Irvine (1902–03) |
| Preceded by | The Lord Brassey |
| Succeeded by | Sir Reginald Talbot |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
4 July 1848 Lincolnshire, England |
| Died | 7 February 1933 (aged 84) London, England |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | United Kingdom |
| Service/branch | British Army |
| Years of service | 1868–1901 |
| Rank | Colonel |
| Battles/wars |
Egyptian Expedition Mahdist War |
| Awards | Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George |
George Sydenham Clarke, 1st Baron Sydenham of Combe GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, GBE (4 July 1848 – 7 February 1933) was a British Army officer and colonial administrator.
Clarke was born in Lincolnshire, and educated at Haileybury, Wimbledon and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich.
Clarke entered the Royal Engineers in 1868, served in the Egyptian Expedition and as Assistant Political officer during the following Sudan expedition.
From 1885 until 1892 Clarke was secretary to the Colonial Defence Committee, for which he was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in 1893. He was also secretary to the Royal Commission on Navy and Army Administration in 1888, a commission which did much to improve cooperation between the two services. In the late 1890s he was Superintendent of the Royal Carriage Department at Woolwich.
Clarke retired from the army in October 1901, when he had been appointed Governor of Victoria the previous month. He arrived in Melbourne and took the oath of office on 11 December 1901, and served in Australia until 1903. He served in India as Governor of Bombay between 1907 and 1913. A fine statue of his stands at the entrance of that city's Science Centre, located next to the Oval Maidan (Oval Park), South Bombay. In 1913 he was elevated to the peerage as "Baron Sydenham of Combe", of Dulverton in the County of Devon, named after one of the ancient seats of the ancient de Sydenham family which originated at the manor of Sydenham, near Bridgwater in Somerset. After his last term as governor he was a member of the committee that issued the Esher Report. The biographer of the Committee's chairman describes Clarke as "...an insensitive, clumsy, uncouth and infinitely boring man...". Clarke was also the first Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence. Originally a Liberal, he became increasingly radical in his later life and was, in the 1930s, a prominent supporter of fascist causes.
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