Jeremiah Clarke

Jeremiah Clarke (c. 1674–1707) was an English Baroque composer and organist active in the musical life of the Church of England and the royal court. The exact year of his birth is uncertain, but he was probably born in London in the early 1670s. He was associated with the Chapel Royal as a young singer and studied under John Blow, one of the leading English church musicians of the Restoration period.

Clarke served as organist at Winchester College in the 1690s and later held posts at St Paul's Cathedral in London. In 1704 he became one of the organists of the Chapel Royal, sharing the position with William Croft. His output included anthems, odes, theatre music, keyboard works, and ceremonial pieces. His best-known composition is the Prince of Denmark's March, long misattributed to Henry Purcell and often known as the Trumpet Voluntary.

Clarke also contributed melodies that entered English hymnody. The tune GILLINGHAM is credited to him in hymnological sources and was paired with John Hunter's “Dear Master, in whose life I see” in The Methodist Hymn-Book with Tunes (1933). That later pairing places Clarke among the documented tune composers associated with Hunter's text, even though the hymn is more commonly sung in modern Methodist use to the anonymous eighteenth-century tune HURSLEY.