Henry Clerke : Short Biography

How the St John Clerkes came to Mexico

There are many people in Mexico and the southern United States, mainly Texas, who bear the name ‘St John Clerke’.  They all descend from Irishman Henry Clerke, whose son Henry St John Clerke emigrated to Mexico at the beginning of the 20th century and settled in Monterrey, Mexico.

Henry Clerke (1845-1897)

Henry Clerke was born in Skibbereen, the southernmost town in Ireland, in the county of Cork, on St Valentine’s Day (14 February) in 1845.  Skibbereen is some four miles inland from Castletownsend, where the harbour was a base for both the British navy and army at the time. 

Henry’s father was Thomas St John Clerk (1809-1860), who came from a wealthy family of high standing. His mother was Elizabeth Mary (Jagoe).  She had been born in 1816, the daughter of the Reverend John Jagoe and his wife Elizabeth (nee Murphy) who had married in Cork in 1812.  

Henry’s cousin Agnes Mary Clerke was to become an authority on the history of science and astronomy, authoring several books.  A crater on the moon was named in her honour near the landing site of Apollo 12.

Henry Clerke joined the Royal Navy on 11 July 1868, at the age of 23.  He served as a surgeon on board HMS Merlin in the Third Ashantee War in West Africa (today, Ghana) in 1873-74, for which he was awarded a medal by Queen Victoria which is still in the family’s possession. 

On 26 February 1878, at the age of 33, Henry married Louisa Clatworthy, then 22 years old, at St Mary’s church at Chatham.  Chatham was a major British naval base on the Medway river in Kent, where Henry was appointed as a Staff Surgeon in the Royal Navy on Christmas Day 1879.

The married life of Henry Clerke and his wife Louisa was sadly short.  Towards the end of 1879 their son was born and named Henry St John.  Louisa became pregnant again – but this time both baby and mother died.   Louisa was only 26 years old.  Henry was left a widower at the age of 36 with a two-year-old son.

Henry married again, to Matilda Murphy in London on 29 February 1896.  He died the following year in Boulogne-sur-Mer in France on 25 May 1897.  His son Henry St John Clerke was 18 at that time.  He must have been well-educated as he appears to have developed an interest in classical music that was to lead to a professional career as a tenor and language teacher.  About this time that he met and fell in love with Helen Hesse Ritz, whom he was to marry mid-1902 in Kensington in London.  He was in his twenties and she was a widow in her thirties, already a successful international concert pianist and teacher.  The Ritz family were wealthy German industrialists with political connections and a strong interest in the arts.

Henry and Helen married in Notting Hill, London in 1902.  Helen gave birth to Aubrey Henry St John Clerke in Kensington, London the following year.  The 1930 census of Mexico records the family living in Monterrey.  Henry was recorded as being a language teacher, able to speak English, French, German and Italian.  Helen was recorded as a piano teacher.  Henry eventually passed away in Monterrey in 1960, at the age of 57.

Aubrey Henry St John Clerke (1903-1950) pursued a professional career as a tenor and an actor, married twice and had at least three children and many grandchildren who today bear the surname St John Clerke, many of whom may not be aware of their family roots in Ireland!