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64 TOM CLARKE: THE FIRST PHOTOGRAPHAn original photograph showing Sgt. James Clarke and his wife Mary with their two elder children, Tom (born 1858) and Maria (born 1859), in an African setting,
with an African tribesman to left. Tom is presumably the child in his mother’s arms, while Maria holds her father’s hand. Both children are wearing female
dress, as was customary at the time.
James Clarke was born in Co. Leitrim in 1830, and enlisted in the British Army, in the Royal Artillery, in the famine year of 1847. After some years garrison duty,
including Clonmel, where he met his wife, he was posted to the Crimea where he fought at the battles of Alma and Inkerman and the siege of Sebastopol.
According to Le Roux, he married in 1857, and was stationed in the Isle of Wight when his first son Tom was born. A year later Clarke was drafted to South
Africa, where he served at the Cape and other garrisons until 1865, returning thereafter with his family to Europe.
The photograph, 3 ½ ins x 4 ½ ins, is worn and creased, and lacks a triangular portion at top left (no loss of figures). It is nevertheless a rare and interesting
item, the first photograph of the child who was later to be the prime mover in the preparations for the Easter Rising and first signatory of the 1916 Proclama-
tion.
Sold w.a.f.
Provenance: Daly family of Limerick.
€ 400 - 600