Charles Clark (1806–1880) was an English publisher, farmer and satirist.[1]
He was the son of Robert Clark (died 1850), a farmer, and his wife Mary Ann Pond (died 1849), and was born at Heybridge, Maldon in Essex. He attended a school in Witham run by James Salisbury Dunn.
Clark started farming with his father, and they moved to Great Totham in 1823. He was writing poetry by the mid-1820s, and set up a press by 1828. George William Johnson who lived in the village published his History of the Parish of Great Totham (1834) with Clark. Most of what he printed were parodies and songs, generally "exceedingly silly and indecent" according to Gordon Goodwin in the Dictionary of National Biography. Clark imitated the poet Thomas Hood, and in one case was threatened with legal action.[2] [3] That was caused by a poem of 1839, A Doctor's 'Do' ings, on the marriage of Dr Henry Dixon.[4]
An associate of Clark was the printer Philip Henry Youngman (fl.1826–1851), in Witham and Maldon.[5] [6] Other productions from Clark's private press were reprints of tracts and old works, including one by the Tudor agricultural writer Thomas Tusser. Clark was given support in this direction by John Russell Smith.
In later life Clark moved back to Heybridge, and in the 1860s became reclusive. He died unmarried on 21 March 1880, and his press and library were auctioned.
He wrote pseudonymously the following: As C. C.:
As Chilly Charley or Snarley Charley:
As Doggerel Drydog:
As Charles William Duckett:
As Thomas Hood the Younger:
As Pe-Gs-Us:
As Quintin Queeerfellow: