Prayer Calendar: Deceased Priests who have ministered the Catholic Faith throughout Toowoomba and districts, 1864–2025, Compiled by Annie Carrett, Diocesan Archivist, 2001, Updated by Gabrielle Saide, Diocesan Archivist, 2023:
Rev Albert George Clarke, died 3 Oct 1931

Albert George Clarke was born around 1858, on of the youngest of fourteen children. His Anglican father was Rector of Geashill, County Offaly in Ireland. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin and followed his father into the Anglican Ministry. He spent three years ministering in Ceylon and foru years at York and Leeds. He resigned from Anglican Ministry in 1889. He was received into the Roman Catholic Church at Ventnor on the Isle of Wight. The Bishop of Portsmouth accepted Father Clarke as a candidate for the Priesthood and sent him to Rome to study. He was ordained in 1892 at the Jesuit College, Jersey in the Channel Isles. He ministered at Winchester and was Priest in charge at various places including Shanklin, Isle of Wight, Guernsey and Aldershot.. In 1910, due to ill health he emigrated to Sydney and ministered at Pyrmont. He went to New Zealand and came back to Australia where he was appointed Parish Priest of Helidon in 1915. The Brisbane Courier reported that in the year 1916, Fr. Clarke celebrated two Christmas Masses where classical music was played. On returning to Sydney, he was appointed to the Boys Home at Westmead by Archbishop Kelly and then to St Joseph's Hospital at Auburn. Father Clarke's health failed and he died on 3rd October 1931. After Solemn Office and requiem Mass at St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney celebrated by Archbishop Kelly on 5th October 1931, he was interred at the Rookwood Cemetery.

Reproduced by permission of Bishop Ken Howell.

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Denis M. Long, Pioneer and Early Priests, Archdiocese of Brisbane, Deceased or retired by 1929, 2021, p 193:
Fr Albert George Clarke

This priest spent just over three years in the Brisbane diocese. He was in poor health when he came to the archdiocese. The Archbishop appointed him to Helidon.

Albert George Clark was born in 1858 as the thirteenth of fourteen children of an extremely low-church Anglican clergyman who was the rector of Geashill in Ireland. He followed his father into the Anglican ministry with decidedly High Church views. From 1882 as a clergyman in that fold he spent three years in Ceylon and four in Yorkshire. He announced his decision to embrace the Catholic faith and was received into the Church at Ventnor in May 1889. Accepted by the Roman Catholic bishop of Portsmouth for that diocese he went to study at the English College in Rome. He was ordained a Catholic priest on 8 September 1892 at the Jesuit College on Jersey in the Channel Islands.(1)

Fr Clarke served as a Catholic priest at Winchester, Reading, Shanklin, Portsmouth, Aldershot, and Eastleigh. His last appointment in that diocese was as parish priest of Havant, near Portsmouth, for many years.

In 1904 he became seriously ill. Following surgery he spent three months in recovery in the Canary Island.

No better on his return, he spent most of his time till 1910 on two visits to Australia. When he went again to live in the English climate it quickly became plain that he would have to resign and definitely establish himself in Australia. This he did at the end of 1910. For four months he assisted at Pyrmont and then crossed the Tasman Sea to be chaplain for four years to the Little Sister of the Poor at Ponsonby in New Zealand. Ill-health once again compelled him to seek a change, which took him to Queensland where he ministered for three years in the Helidon parish.(2)

Helidon was made a separate parish from Gatton in 1915 and Fr Clarke was the first parish priest. He resided in Gatton with Fr Daniel Walsh until he built a presbytery in Helidon which was opened in December 1916.(3)

In 1919 he was appointed chaplain to the Westmead Orphanage in Sydney and in later years went to reside at Auburn. There he did a little Sunday work and assisted in the confessional. The last twelve months of his life he spent in retirement in the city.

He was very generous with the means at his disposal. Among his benefactions is numbered the gift of a new baptistery in St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney costing £3,000.

Fr Albert Clarke died in Sydney on Saturday 3 October 1931 in his seventy-third year. Archbishop Kelly presided at the Solemn Office and Requiem Mass in St Mary's Cathedral. Fr Clarke was buried in the Roman Catholic portion of Rockwood cemetery.(4)

Footnotes
1. Sydney Morning Herald, 5 Oct 1931, p. 8.
2. Catholic Press, Sydney, 8 Oct 1931, p. 15.
3. Denis M Long, In the Vineyard-100 years of Catholic life in the Lockyer Valley, 1987, p 37.
4. Sydney Morning Herald, op. cit.

Reproduced by permission of Fr Denis Long.