Who was May Herschel Clarke?

It started with a tweet from yesterday morning:

So off to google where I found the same inaccurate one-line biography pretty much everywhere, including Wikipedia. 

May Herschel-Clarke (1850–1950) was an English poet. She is chiefly known today for her Anti-War poems Nothing to Report and The Mother, the latter of which was published in 1917 as a direct response to Rupert Brooke‘s famous poem The Soldier. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Herschel-Clarke

In terms of dates: Wrong.

Elsewhere it said she lived between 1850 and 1950. Wrong again.

And those false dates and that meagre scrap of information is repeated on site after site.

Beyond that, looking for anything on May Herschel Clarke was pretty much a dead end. And those dates – they just sounded a bit too neat and tidy. And it would have meant that she would have published those war poems in her late 60’s and somehow that did not feel right. 

So off to investigate.

The first thing I discovered is that a May Herschel Clarke was listed in the electoral rolls in the 1930’s, 40’s and early fifties as living at 220, The Vista, London SE9. And she was the only voter listed at the address. There did not seem to be any person of that name born in 1850. Perhaps she was a Mary Herschel who had married a Clarke? Dead end. 

The next document I found was the 1939 Registry for England and Wales where a May H. Clarke was living at the same address as the May Herschel Clarke listed in the electoral rolls.  

And this document gave date of birth – March 19th 1894. It also shows that she was single, living alone, and that her occupation was freelance journalist. A note on the right also indicates that she was an air raid warden with the W.B.C – presumably Woolwich Borough Council.  

The date of birth made it easier. to track down her parents: Charles Frederick Clarke and Minnie Emma Clarke. At the time of the 1901 census they were living in what looks like Park Road, Plumstead.  Her father’s occupation is listed as surgeon.

Ten years later in the 1911 census the family has moved to 254, Burrage Road, Woolwich where they have a live-in servant and the father’s occupation is listed as “medical practitioner”.

Clarke was born in 1894 but interestingly she was baptized as an adult in February 1915. Here’s the certificate:

When her father died in 1936 he was living in Bexley Kent and in his will he left  870 pounds and 5 shillings to his wife. By that time May was living at 220 the Vista, Woolwich. 

Neither of her parents seem to have “Herschel” in their names.  And it’s a middle name not part of a hyphenated last name. I was curious where that had come from. I can only speculate that perhaps one of her parents was interested astronomy or maybe the name just appealed to them. 

May Herschel Clarke died in 1955.

I found confirmation that this was indeed the poet and  the dates were correct here:

Clarke is best remembered for her poems in Behind the Firing Lines which was published in 1917. It received a little attention and a rather condescending review from The Athenaeum in December 1917.

Clark had other things published too. She received prize money from the Bookman and wrote to and for local and national publications.

As a young woman she was an outspoken feminist with strong opinions about women and work. After the war she wrote extensively about the film industry.

But I will leave all that for another post, ending here with perhaps her most remembered poem “The Mother” – her response to Rupert Brooke’s most famous poem “The Soldier”.

Featured image: by Sabine Ojeil on Unsplash