disease began to affect him soon after arriving at Westminster. Speaking about the effects of the disease in 2001 before its effects had become too debilitating, he said: “The worst thing is the effect on my handwriting; my hand won’t do what my brain intends. ” A festschrift titled The Character of Wisdom was published in his honour in 2004, and two years later Wesley retired from Westminster, when he was appointed KCVO. Wesley met Natalie Gill at a church youth club in Beckenham and they were married in 1968, and now have a foster daughter, Helena Mann. They ran a hospitable home and Wesley was an excellent cook. He was also a College Governor between 1995 to 2003. After he retired, he and Natalie moved to Hampshire and both worshipped at Romsey Abbey, although Wesley’s worsening Parkinson’s Disease meant he was able to do little else. He is survived by Natalie and Helena. well as on several websites, and this obituary is based on some of these. Sir Robert Cyril Clarke [1940-47] 28.03.1929 – 01.06.2017 Robert Clarke was an only child for his parents, Robert and Rose, and Obituaries for Wesley were published in many national newspapers as father was a commercially-minded civil servant who encouraged young Robert to go into industry. The family were not sufficiently wealthy to send Robert to a fee-paying school without a scholarship, but he did win a scholarship to come to Dulwich, and duly arrived from St James’s School in Kidbrooke, during the the family lived in Blackheath. His
Battle of Britain in the Second World War. At the College, Robert was in Grenville, and while his father was serving in the Middle East during the war, he boarded at the school, sleeping in the cellars during air raids at night. He later said “We used to hope the school would be bombed during the night. It was bombed on three occasions and we were sent home for three weeks at a time while they replaced all the windows.” He played rugby for the 1st XV in his final two years and in 1946 the team was undefeated for the whole season. After leaving Dulwich, Robert did National Service for two years with the Royal West Kent Regiment, which he described as “an extension of school, but a bit softer.” He then went to Pembroke College, Oxford to study Modern History, and continued to play rugby there too. On graduation in 1952, he looked for a job in business and started work for Cadbury in Birmingham, which he described as “an ethical company, run by the Quaker Cadbury family, which had strong views then on issues that now we all have strong views on”. He started at the factory in Bournville to learn how the business worked. His first job away from the factory was to manage a chain of twelve Cadbury- owned sweetshops, which gave him an early taste of running a business. He enjoyed the sense of independence, so was disappointed when he had to return to the Cadbury head office. In 1962, he was appointed to manage Cadbury Cakes, at a time of fierce competition in the packaged cake market, with Rank Hovis McDougall’s Mr Kipling range, plus Lyons and United Biscuits (UB) all being major players. Cadbury and UB combined their cake operations, then United bought out Cadbury’s cake division, taking Robert with them.
At United Biscuits, he formed a close bond with their charismatic chairman, Sir Hector (later Lord) Laing, who was the grandson of the inventor of the digestive biscuit. Robert rose swiftly through the ranks at UB, running the biscuits operation from 1977, becoming group chief executive in 1986 and deputy chairman in 1989. Robert said of his chairman, “Hector was an inspirational leader, the sort of man that most people would die for ninety per cent of the time, and the other ten per cent of the time they could kill him.” In 1988 the Great Ormond Street Hospital launched what became the enormously successful £54 million Wishing Well appeal, Robert’s mentor, Hector Laing, chaired the appeal committee and involved him in the project. Robert so enjoyed fundraising that he later became Chairman of the hospital’s special trustees. He was also a very successful Chairman of the Bursary Appeal Committee at his school. In 1993 Robert was knighted for services to the food industry. In 1994, he became chairman of Thames Water, but that company was struggling with its regulator, Ofwat, and he was criticised for an unsuccessful attempt to diversify into unregulated businesses overseas. He stepped down in 1999 and Thames Water was bought by RWE of Germany in 2001. While he was at Oxford, Robert met Lynne, who was a nurse at the Radcliffe Infirmary in the city. They married in 1952, when he graduated, and had four children together, Jonathan, Tristan (deceased), Ben and Anna. At weekends, Robert escaped boardroom pressures by renovating whichever old farmhouse the family were living in at the time. At home, he was said to be never happier than when he was wheeling a
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