Edward Clodd | |
|---|---|
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| Born | (1840-07-01)1 July 1840 |
| Died | 16 March 1930(1930-03-16) (aged 89) Aldeburgh, Suffolk, UK |
| Occupations | |
| Spouse(s) | |
| Children | 8 |
| Relatives | Alan Clodd (grandson) |
Edward Clodd (1 July 1840 – 16 March 1930) was an English banker, writer and anthropologist.[1] He had a great variety of literary and scientific friends, who periodically met atWhitsunday (a springtime holiday) gatherings at his home atAldeburgh in Suffolk.
He was born inMargate,UKGBI (present-day UK) son of Edward Clodd, captain of a trading brig, and his wife Susan Parker.[2] The family moved soon afterwards toAldeburgh; his father's ancestors were fromParham andFramlingham in Suffolk. In aBaptist family, his parents wished him to become a minister, but he instead began a career in accountancy and banking, relocating to London in 1855. He was the only surviving child of seven.[3] Edward first worked unpaid for six months at an accountant's office in Cornhill in London when he was 14 years of age.[3] He worked for theLondon Joint Stock Bank from 1872 to 1915, and had residences both in London and Suffolk.
Clodd was an early devotee of the work ofCharles Darwin and had personal acquaintance withThomas Huxley andHerbert Spencer. He wrote biographies of all three men, and worked to populariseevolution with books likeThe Childhood of the World andThe Story of Creation: A Plain Account of Evolution.[1]
Clodd was an agnostic and wrote that theGenesis creation narrative of the Bible is similar to other religious myths and should not be read as a literal account. He wrote many popular books onevolutionary science.[4] He wrote a biography ofThomas Henry Huxley and was a lecturer and populariser of anthropology and evolution.[5]
Clodd was also a keenfolklorist, joining theFolklore Society from 1878, and later becoming its president.[1][6] He was a Suffolk Secretary of thePrehistoric Society of East Anglia from 1914 to 1916. He was a prominent member and officer of the Omar Khayyam Club or "O.K. Club", and organised the planting of the rose fromOmar Khayyam's tomb on to the grave ofEdward Fitzgerald atBoulge, Suffolk, at the Centenary gathering.[7]
Clodd had a talent for friendship, and liked to entertain his friends at literary gatherings in Aldeburgh at his seafront home there, Strafford House, during Whitsuntides. Prominent among his literary friends and correspondents wereGrant Allen,George Meredith,Thomas Hardy,George Gissing, Edward Fitzgerald,Andrew Lang,Cotter Morison,Samuel Butler,Mary Kingsley and MrsLynn Linton; he also knew SirHenry Thompson, SirWilliam Huggins, SirLaurence Gomme, SirJohn Rhys,Paul Du Chaillu,Edward Whymper,Alfred Comyn Lyall,York Powell,William Holman Hunt, SirE. Ray Lankester,H. G. Wells and many others as acquaintances. His hospitality and friendship was an important part of the development of their social relations. George Gissing's close friendship with Clodd began when he accepted an invitation to a Whitsuntide gathering in Aldeburgh in 1895.[8]
Clodd was Chairman of theRationalist Press Association from 1906 to 1913.[9] He was skeptical about claims of theparanormal andpsychical research, which he wrote were the result ofsuperstition and the outcome of ignorance.[10] Clodd criticised the spiritualist writings ofOliver Lodge as non-scientific.[11] His bookQuestion: A Brief History and Examination of Modern Spiritualism (1917) exposed fraudulentmediumship and the irrational belief inspiritualism andTheosophy.[12]
On 20 August 1861, Clodd married Eliza Garman (1836–1911) with whom he had eight children, six of which survived infancy.[2][3] Clodd and Garman later separated but did not divorce.[2] In 1914, Clodd married Phyllis Maud Rope (1887–1957), a student at theRoyal College of Science.[2][13][14]
Through his son Harold Parker Clodd, a rubber broker, Clodd was the grandfather ofAlan Clodd.[15][16][17] Clodd died at Strafford House inAldeburgh, Suffolk on 16 March 1930.[2]
The following list is incomplete. Biographies of Darwin, Wallace, Bates and Spencer exist.
