Henry Martyn Clark
Henry Martyn Clark | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 19, 1859 Peshawar, Pakistan |
| Died | April 10, 1916 (aged 56) Edinburgh, Scotland |
| Citizenship | United Kingdom |
| Education | University of Edinburgh, MB and CM 1881, MD 1892 |
| Occupations | Medical missionary and pamphleteer |
| Employer | Church Missionary Society |
Henry Martyn Clark (September 19, 1859 – April 10, 1916) was an Afghan-born adopted British physician, missionary, and writer. He worked for the Church MIssionary Society as medical missionary stationed in Amritsar, India.
Early life
Clark was born circa 1857 in Peshawar, Pakistan to Afghan parents. He was adopted after his mother's death by Elizabeth and Rev. Robert Clark in 1859. It is thought that he was named Henry Martyn after the Anglican missionary to Persia and India.
Clark was educated at the University of Edinburgh, receiving an MB, CM in 1881 and receiving a MD in 1892.[1]
Career
In 1881, Clark was accepted by the Church Missionary Society to start the Amritsar Medical Mission as a medical missionary, where he worked with Arthur Colborne Lankester. He left for Amritsar, India, to join his father on 4 February 1882.
In Amritsar, Clark gained a reputation as a Christian debater and pamphleteer on Islam and Hinduism. He participated in a fifteen-day public debate with Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement. This was later published by the Ahmadiyya movement in Urdu as Jang e muqqadas (the Holy War).[2]
On 1 August 1897, Henry Clark filed a lawsuit of attempted murder against Mirza Ghulam Ahmad with Deputy Commissioner Montagu William Douglas in Ludhiana.[3][4] Clark stated that Ahmad had sent a youth named Abdul Hamid to murder him. A version of events is included in the biography A Life of Ahmad by Fazl Mosque. Based on Douglas's investigation of the youth's testimony, the charges against Ahmad were dropped. In his book Kitab ul Baryyah (An Account of Exoneration), Mirza Ghulam Ahmad narrated the details of the case.[5]
Clark was the editor-in-chief of the Dictionary of the Punjab and wrote a biography of his adoptive father, Robert Clark of The Panjab: Pioneer and Missionary Statesman. He retired to Edinburgh in 1905, where he lectured on tropical diseases.
Personal life
Clark married Mary Emma Ireland in 1892. They had two children: Walter Ireland Foggo Martyn-Clark and Robert Eric Noel Martyn-Clark. Their sons were both born in Amritsar and, like their father, studied medicine atί the University of Edinburgh.
Clark died in Edinburgh, Scotland, on April 10, 1916. He was buried in the Dean Cemetery in Edinburgh. His birth date on the stone is 19 September 1859, and his death date is 10 April 1916. The inscription reads "Physician to both soul and body"
References
- ^ Clark, Henry Martyn (1892). Some observations concerning malaria: especially as met with in Indian practice (Thesis). University of Edinburgh. hdl:1842/23796.
- ^ Farina Mir The Social Space of Language: Vernacular Culture in British.. 2010 p20 "Religious reformers often engaged one another in public, and some of their debates seem to have been public spectacles. In one famous example, when Mirza Ghulam Ahmad accepted the Christian missionary Henry Martyn Clark's invitation to debate, Ahmad held Henry Martyn-Clark in extended dialogue for fifteen days.50"
- ^ The India List and India Office List, Great Britain. India Office - 1900 p436 "DOUGLAS, Montague William, CLE., Major, Indian Army (dep. commr, Punjab). — In mil. employ from 21st March, 1887; asst. commr., April, 1892; dep. commr., Nov., 1899; CLE., June, 1903."
- ^ The Cyclopedia of India: biographical, historical, administrative 1992 p154 "Major MONTAGU WILLIAM DOUGLAS, c.i.e., Deputy Commissioner, Punjab, entered the 1st Battalion, North Staffordshire Regiment, in February.1884. He was Private. Secretary to the late Sir Henry Norman when Governor of Jamaica"
- ^ Kitab ul Baryyah