John Clark
Born(1785-11-21)21 November 1785
Greinton, UK
Died23 May 1853(1853-05-23) (aged 67)
Bridgewater, UK
Occupation(s)Inventor and printer
Notable workLatin Verse Machine

John Clark (1785-1853) was a British printer and inventor who created the first automated text generator, the Latin Verse Machine (also known as the Eureka) between 1830 and 1843. Clark also patented a method for rubberising cloth that was used for air beds.[1][2]

Life

John Clark was born on 21 November 1785 and died on 23 May 1853. He was a cousin of Cyrus and James Clark, who founded the shoe manufacturing company C. & J. Clark, still doing business as Clark. He was a Quaker.

Air beds

In 1813 Clark registered a patent for air-tight beds, pillows and cushions.[1] In an article for the Furniture History Society, Edward Joy wrote that this was the first such patent, and that Clark used "unvulcanized rubber filled by means of an air pump."[3] Clark's patent describes various uses for the new technique, including for beds, which would not require stuffing materials other than air. The air pump could be kept beneath the bed. For medical uses, the bed could also be filled with hot steam or cold water, allowing for a variety of temperatures. Clark also described how printers could use the air pillow to His niece wrote that he sold the patent to Charles Macintosh who used it for his raincoats, although this may have been a misunderstanding on his niece's part.[2]

Although a physician used Clark's invention to make a water bed for invalids, there was no widespread adoption of air beds or water beds at this time, largely due to more complicated maintenance than the more common stuffed beds, and because spring beds became popular.[4]

Latin Verse Machine

Between 1830 and 1843 Clark constructed a machine that could generate a new line of Latin hexameter verse every minute. He exhibited the machine at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly, London, during the spring of 1845.

The Latin Verse Machine is the first automated text generator, and a pioneering work of generative art and generative literature.[5][6] It is a remarkable precursor of the genre of electronic literature, although it is of course mechanical rather than electronic. Clark's machine predates the first electronic text generator (Christopher Strachey's love letter generator) by more than a century. Clark's comparison of his text generator to the contemporary kaleidoscope is evidence of a theoretical interest in generative art and literature.[7]

The Latin Verse Machine has also been seen as a critique of prosody and the teaching of Latin in 19th century Britain.[8]

Author and printer

Clark was a printer in Bridgwater, and also published a number of works that he wrote himself.[2]

These include:

  • The Avalonian Guide to the town of Glastonbury, and its Environs. This guide book was published in several editions. The 1835 edition has been digitised by Google Books.[9]
  • The General History and Description of a Machine for Composing Hexameter Latin Verses. Clark published two editions of this 28 page pamphlet describing his Latin Verse Machine, in 1837 and 1843. Oiginals are held by the Alfred Gillett Trust in Street, Somerset, UK.[7]
  • Don Juan. Canto XVII (1827) This was a continuation of Lord Byron's satiric poem Don Juan.
  • The Alfred Gillett Trust in Somerset holds an archive of Clark's papers and the still functional Latin Verse Machine.[10]

References

  1. 1 2 "Specification of the Patent Granted to John Clark, of Bridgewater, in the County of Somerset, Upholsterer, &c". The Belfast Monthly Magazine. 12 (67): 131–133. 1814. ISSN 1758-1605. JSTOR 30075320.
  2. 1 2 3 "John Clark 1785 - 1853". Bridgwater Heritage Group. Retrieved 22 July 2023.
  3. ↑ Joy, Edward T. (1974). "Early Nineteenth-Century Invalid Etc. Furniture". Furniture History. 10: 74–77. ISSN 0016-3058. JSTOR 23403411.
  4. ↑ Kirkham, Pat (1988). "The London Furniture Trade 1700-1870". Furniture History. 24: 121. ISSN 0016-3058. JSTOR 23406689. A substitute for horse-hair was patented in 1806, while in 1813 and 1816 patents were taken out for air-filled cushions and beds. John Clark, a of Bridgewater in Somerset, patented his invention of air-beds, pillows and cushion from caoutchouc, in other words raw uncultivated rubber, using an air pump to fill the mattresses, in 1813. He was followed three years later by an engineer, Samuel Knightsbridge, who also patented a seamless substance which could be filled with air advantages of such air-beds were many. They were light, portable, resistant to not go lumpy, could be soft or firm and even warm or cold. They could also be filled with water or other fluids. Despite the adaptation of Clark's idea by a physician who used improved rubber produced by Macintosh and Company to produce a water or 'hydrostatic bed for invalids', there is no evidence that air or water beds were ever used on a large scale in hospitals or by travellers, let alone in domestic interiors. Problems in maintenance meant that they could not compete with the stuffed mattress, particularly after the introduction of spiral springing.
  5. ↑ Sharples, Mike (1 January 2023). "John Clark's Latin Verse Machine: 19th Century Computational Creativity". IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. 45 (1): 31–42. arXiv:2301.05570. doi:10.1109/MAHC.2023.3241258. ISSN 1058-6180. S2CID 255825542.
  6. ↑ Sharples, Mike; Pérez y Pérez, Rafael (2022). Story machines: how computers have become creative writers. London New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-367-75195-1.
  7. 1 2 Clark, John (1848). The General History and Description of a Machine for Composing Hexameter Latin Verses (2nd ed.). Bridgwater, UK: Frederick Wood.
  8. ↑ Hall, Jason David (1 September 2007). "Popular Prosody: Spectacle and the Politics of Victorian Versification". Nineteenth-Century Literature. 62 (2): 222–249. doi:10.1525/ncl.2007.62.2.222. ISSN 0891-9356.
  9. ↑ Clark), J. C. (John (1835). The Avalonian Guide to the town of Glastonbury, and its Environs. Signed: J. C., i.e. John Clark. Second edition. J.B. Morehouse, Glastonbury; J. Clark, typ. Bridgwater.
  10. ↑ Menegali, Marcelo (7 November 2014). "Latin Verse Machine". Alfred Gillett Trust. Retrieved 22 July 2023.
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