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Name: Clark, Robert Shepherd
Birth Date: 16 Feb 1908 Bootle
Death Date: 11 Apr 1957 Nairobi, lung cancer caused by asbestos
First Date: 1933
Profession: Missionary for Bible Churchmen's Missionary Society
Area: Karamoja
Married: In Ngora, Uganda 18 Sep 1934 Doris Wiggins b. 6 Jan 1905 Islington, d. 25 June 1986 Chester
Children: Andrew (21 Aug 1941 Kitale-28 Feb 2026 Waikanae, New Zealand); Timothy; Ruth Marion (28 Mar 1947 Bootle-17 May 2010 Kingston upon Thames)
School: Bible Church Mission College, Bristol
General Information:
Louise Pirouet in Dictionary of African Christian Biography Canon Robert Shepherd Clark of the Bible Churchmen’s Missionary Society arrived in Karamoja in 1933. The following year he was ordained deacon and married another missionary of the society who had previously worked in Persia. In 1935 he was ordained priest. The Clarks were posted to Lotome after their marriage, the main BCMS center of work in Karamoja, where they remained until 1956, their long-continued service giving valuable stability to the growth of the mission. They built up school-work, and in 1939 completed a preliminary translation of the New Testament into Karimojong. Because of the valuable work Clark was doing, the D.D. refused to allow him to be called up for military service during the second world war. By 1943 there were about 500 baptized Christians in Karamoja, the first man was looking forward to ordination (v. Bible Churchmen’s Missionary Society), and others were hoping to become evangelists on demobilization. In the years after the war Clark was increasingly involved in school supervision and in repair and maintenance work as well as introducing agricultural and technical schemes, and giving help in the dispensary. In 1950 he was made an honorary canon of the pro-Cathedral of the Diocese of the Upper Nile. In 1954 he and Mrs. Clark were awarded the Queen’s Medal. Mrs. Clark was headmistress of the Lotome School from 1934-1957, and also did valuable translation work, and prepared an Akarimojong-English Vocabulary. The manuscripts of a revised translation of the New Testament was completed in 1958. Canon Clark died in Nairobi in 1957; Mrs. Clark retired to England in 1959 after spending a short period as headmistress of the Bethany Homecraft Center at Soroti.
Timothy Clark (son) Reverend Canon Robert and Mrs Doris Clark were missionaries in the remote district of North East Uganda, Karamoja. During those war years, they were very cut off from the outside world so, effectively, had to become subsistence farmers. They kept pigs, cattle, rabbits and chickens and grew a range of crops and fruit. Game was plentiful so shooting for the pot was a weekly imperative. Our mother left Karamoja after Dad died and took up a post as headmistress of a girls’ school in Soroti, Uganda.
Nairobi Forest Road cemetery Robert Shepherd CLARK Birth 1908 Death 11 Apr 1957 (aged 48–49) Nairobi, Kenya Burial Nairobi Forest Road Cemetery Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya Plot Section:22 Lot: 59 Memorial ID 233170472 . Inscription in loving memory / of / Robert / Shepherd Clark / died 11th April 1957 / aged 49 years
Ancestry 1 Dec 1932 • London, on board the Llangibby Castle, departing to East Africa, initially lived at Kachileba and then Lotome Mission Station on the banks of the Mani Mani river in NE Uganda and worked with the Karamojong people. Jan 1934 • Lotome, Moroto, Uganda. Caught Blackwater fever from the mosquito which Kachebila abounded in. Went to hospital in Kitale. Transferred from Kachileba to Lotome to take over the practical side of the work (agricultural). Ordained 16 Dec 1934 Ngora. 1950 made Canon of the Upper Nile. Rev. Canon / Church of England Missionary in Kenya and Uganda.