Clarke was called to the
Bar at
Middle Temple in 1965. He developed a
commercial and
maritime law practice. He became a
Queen's Counsel in 1979, and was a
Recorder sitting in both criminal and civil courts from 1985 to 1992. In 1993, Clarke became a
High Court judge and, as is customary, was appointed a
Knight Bachelor. He was allocated to the
Queen's Bench Division and, in April 1993, he succeeded
Mr Justice Sheen as the
Admiralty Judge. He sat in the
Admiralty Court, the
Commercial Court and the
Crown Court, trying commercial and criminal cases respectively. Clarke was promoted to the
Court of Appeal of England and Wales in 1998 and sworn of the
privy council. Shortly thereafter, he led the Thames Safety Inquiry and in the following year the judicial inquiry into the
Marchioness disaster. He was
Master of the Rolls from 2005 until 2009. On 15 April 2009, it was announced that he would be created a
life peer, was gazetted on 29 May 2009 with the title of
Baron Clarke of Stone-cum-Ebony, of
Stone-cum-Ebony, in the County of
Kent, and took his seat as a
crossbencher in the
House of Lords on 1 June 2009. It was announced on 20 April 2009 that Clarke was to be appointed to the
Supreme Court with effect from 1 October 2009. He retired from the Supreme Court in September 2017. He sat in the House of Lords until his retirement from the House on 14 September 2020. A
member of the
Shipwrights' Company, Clarke was an
Assistant from 2000 and
Prime Warden for 2014–15. == Personal life and death ==