When new housing was being built in the Vauxhall area in the
1980’s local residents successfully campaigned for one of the streets to be
names after James Clarke, making it the first street in Liverpool to be named
after a black man.
Born in Guyana in 1886, when he was 14 he stowed away on a
ship and made his way to Liverpool. Found cold and hungry wandering the streets
by the priests at St Augustine’s, they took him in and found a local family Making it his home over the next forty odd
years he would make his mark in the local community by his tireless efforts to
promote swimming and for personally saving many people from drowning.
He found work as a docker and was by all accounts a natural
athlete, 6 feet tall, 12 stone, and skilled at swimming, running and boxing. He
swam for a number of teams in the city, including Wavertree, Everton and
Woolton, in the last of which he also captained the water polo team.
In 1914 James Clarke married Elizabeth Murphy in the Church
of Our Lady of Reconciliation, setting up home in Elizabeth Terrace and
subsequently bringing up a family of thirteen children (they later lived at
Ashfield Cottages L5, and 4 Blenheim
Street L5. All his known homes have since been demolished) . Their home was
near to the canal and James frequently found himself diving in to rescue
children who were in danger of drowning. He had already been awarded a certificate
by the Liverpool Shipwreck and Humane Society for rescuing a man in West
Waterloo Dock in 1911. Clarke felt passionately that children should be taught to
swim and in the absence of any action by others he started to give lessons at
the Burroughs Gardens Baths. He worked tirelessly to encourage schools to take
their pupils to the swimming baths for lessons.
Clarke had a close relationship with the local police. Not
only did he train their swimming and boxing teams, but he was often called in
to assist in searches for the bodies of people who had drowned.
He died aged 60 in 1946, the local community lining the
streets for his funeral, at which the noted swimmer Austin Rawlinson acted as a
pall-bearer.
