Edward Daniel Clarke (1769–1822)
Greek marbles brought from the shores of the Euxine, Archipelago, and Mediterranean, and deposited in the vestibule of the Public Library of the University of Cambridge
Cambridge: printed by order of the Syndics of the Press, 1809
Cam.b.809.2

The marbles obtained by Clarke and his pupil John Marten Cripps were presented to the Library in 1803. They include the huge marble caryatid–then thought to be a statue of Ceres–taken despite local protest from the sanctuary of Demeter at Eleusis. Their gift inspired others and this catalogue is a record of the collection then on display in the Library. The drawing of the statue from Eleusis is by John Flaxman and shows an imaginative reconstruction. In 1865 the marbles were transferred to the Fitzwilliam Museum to create space for an office at the foot of the staircase leading up to the Library.

Clarke was elected the first Professor of Mineralogy in 1808 and Librarian from 1817. He was one of the founders of the Cambridge Philosophical Society in 1819, along with Adam Sedgwick and John Henslow Stevens. In 1802 he had procured for the Library two new thermometers from Paris, which displayed the scales of Celsius, Fahrenheit and Réaumur (The Cambridge guide for 1830 notes that they were ‘suspended in the north window of the Old Library’). Clarke also collected minerals, Greek vases, inscriptions, Greek coins and medals, plants, and a fine collection of Oriental and Greek manuscripts. The University purchased his collection of minerals after his death for £1500, but his manuscripts had been sold to the Bodleian Library in 1809.