| Thomas Clarke | |
| Honorific-Suffix: | JP |
| Constituency Mp: | Darlington |
| Parliament: | New South Wales |
| Term Start: | 27 July 1898 |
| Term End: | 11 June 1901 |
| Predecessor: | William Schey |
| Successor: | Phillip Sullivan |
| Office2: | Mayor of Redfern |
| Term Start2: | 12 February 1890 |
| Term End2: | 12 February 1891 |
| Predecessor2: | John Crowe |
| Successor2: | John Beveridge |
| Term Start3: | 13 October 1898 |
| Term End3: | 7 February 1900 |
| Predecessor3: | Edwin Berry |
| Successor3: | Henry Vernon |
| Office4: | Alderman on the Redfern Municipal Council |
| Term Start4: | February 1887 |
| Term End4: | February 1906 |
| Constituency4: | Golden Grove Ward |
| Birth Date: | 1846 |
| Birth Place: | County Fermanagh, Ireland, United Kingdom |
| Death Date: | 28 December 1922 |
| Death Place: | Hazelbrook, New South Wales, Australia |
| Party: | Free Trade Party Liberal Reform Party |
Thomas Clarke JP (1846 – 28 December 1922) was an Australian politician and businessman who served several terms as Mayor of Redfern.
Clark was born to a Methodist family in 1846 in County Fermanagh, Ireland, and emigrated to the Colony of New South Wales in 1861. He commenced business as a commercial agent and produce merchant in Sydney and entered politics when he was elected as an Alderman on the first Broughton Vale Municipal Council on 19 June 1871.[1] [2]
Clarke was first elected to serve on Redfern Municipal Council in February 1887 for Golden Grove Ward.[3] He rose to become mayor on two occasions, from February 1890 to February 1891 and from October 1898 to February 1900.[4] [5] [6]
Clarke first stood for the NSW Parliament at the 1895 election as a Free Trade candidate for Darlington, but was unsuccessful.[7] He was eventually elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for Darlington in 1898 as a Free Trader, and sat after federation as a member of the Liberal Reform Party. However he was defeated at the following election in 1901.[8] [9] Clarke continued to serve on Redfern Council until his retirement in February 1906.[10] For thirty-five years, Clarke operated as a commission agent on Sussex Street, Sydney, but retired owing to ill health a few years before his death.[11] In 1902 The Catholic Press reported that Clarke had been elected a vice-president of the Orange Order in Sydney, noting: "Can any of our readers inform us whether this is the same Tom Clarke, potato-seller, of Sussex-street, whom many Catholics of Golden Grove helped to return to Parliament a few years ago? If so, what do his old Catholic supporters and fellow-aldermen think of the Christian gratitude of Alderman T. Clarke?."[12]
He died at his residence, 'The Willows' (which he had owned since at least 1907 and after 1914 joint-owned with his brother Sydney),[13] in Hazelbrook on 28 December 1922 aged 74, with his obituary noting that he "was a popular figure in Redfern, in the affairs of which he always took a deep and active interest."[14] Survived by his wife, Susanna Robinson (d. 1924),[15] he was buried in the family plot at Lawson Cemetery alongside his son Sydney Charles Adam Clarke (1881–1922) who had predeceased him by two months.