CLARKE, Minnie Ellen

1857 - 1942

Minnie Ellen Clarke was born at Abbeygate Street, Bury St Edmund's, Suffolk on 5 May 1857 and baptised at St Mary's Church, Bury St Edmund's on 18 June 1857, only daughter of James Johnson Clarke (1832-1864), a fishmonger, and his wife Georgiana Ellen Palmer, youngest daughter of Peter Palmer, builder of Southwold, who married at Southwold, Suffolk on 1 February 1855. Minnie's father was declared a bankrupt in 1862 and died in 1864, when his widow Georgiana, married at St Mary's Church, Bury St Edmund's on 2 August 1866, Samuel Clarke Wallace (1837-8 December 1878) who took over the fishmonger & poulterer's business. In 1871, Minnie was a 13-year-old scholar, living at Abbeygate Street, Bury St Edmund's with her stepfather, 33-year-old Samuel, 37-year-old mother Georgiana, with siblings James Ernest 15, John Hayhoe 12 and Frank Kingston 9, and stepsiblings William Ellerslie Wallace 3 and Harry Charles Wallace 2, with a Wallace nephew 16-year-old George P. Kingston. Minnie studied at Lambeth College of Art and in Paris and in 1881 a visitor at the home of grocer George Kingston, at Norwich Road, East Dereham, Norfolk. In 1891, a 33-year-old artist, living at Bonham Road, Lambeth, London, she had living with her, her half-brother, 23-year-old William Wallace, a clerk. A miniature and flower artist and an Associate Member of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters, she exhibited at the Royal Academy; Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colour; the Society of Women Artists; Walker Art Gallery; Toronto and elsewhere. Minnie Ellen Clarke lived at 151a Gloucester Road, London S.W. but by 1939, she was living on private means at 29 Rhodesia Court Hotel, Harrington Gardens, Kensington, London where she died on 14 July 1942. She signed her work 'M E Clarke' with the 'M' elongated into the 'E'.

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Works by This Artist