In a 1987 in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian, Sir El­lis Clarke was asked about an epi­taph for him­self.

He sug­gest­ed: "Up­on him was an ho­n­our thrust; he bore it light­ly." In­deed, those words char­ac­terised the life of this out­stand­ing cit­i­zen who passed away on Thurs­day night at age 93, 37 days af­ter he suf­fered a mas­sive stroke on No­vem­ber 24. The on­ly child of Ce­cil and El­ma Clarke, Sir El­lis was born on De­cem­ber 28, 1917, on the Feast of the Holy In­no­cents and close to Christ­mas. So he was named El­lis Em­manuel In­no­cent Clarke-Em­manuel mean­ing God is with us and In­no­cent in ho­n­our of the feast day on which he was born.

Young El­lis Clarke re­ceived his ear­ly school­ing at home and en­tered Chris­t­ian Broth­ers' School, which lat­er be­came Bel­mont In­ter­me­di­ate, when he was sev­en years old. He en­tered St Mary's Col­lege in 1929. In 1933 he placed first in the coun­try in the Cam­bridge Ju­nior Cer­tifi­cate Ex­am­i­na­tion, win­ning the Jern­ing­ham Sil­ver Medal. The fol­low­ing year, he came first in the Cam­bridge School Cer­tifi­cate, win­ning the Jern­ing­ham Book Prize and in 1936 he topped the Ox­ford and Cam­bridge High­er School Cer­tifi­cate win­ning the Open Is­land Schol­ar­ship and the Jern­ing­ham Gold Medal. His sub­jects were ad­vanced math­e­mat­ics, Greek, Latin and French.

El­lis Clarke went to Eng­land in 1937 and read Law at Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege, Lon­don Uni­ver­si­ty and at Grays Inn. He re­turned home in Ju­ly 1941 with a Lon­don LLB as a bar­ris­ter-at-law and was ad­mit­ted to prac­tise a month lat­er at cham­bers lo­cat­ed at 29 St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain, now the site of Cli­co's of­fices. With­in a year he was ap­point­ed le­gal ad­vis­er to the Food Con­troller, the Ho­n­ourable Fred Grant. He con­tin­ued in pri­vate prac­tice, ap­pear­ing in sev­er­al mat­ters in the Crim­i­nal As­sizes, as well as in civ­il mat­ters. In No­vem­ber 1942, with just over a year of le­gal ex­pe­ri­ence un­der his belt, the young bar­ris­ter pros­e­cut­ed in a mur­der case based sole­ly on cir­cum­stan­tial ev­i­dence. Leg­endary crim­i­nal lawyer Sir Gas­ton John­ston ap­peared for the ac­cuseds.

That was the on­ly mur­der case Sir Gas­ton lost in more than 15 years. Af­ter 13 suc­cess­ful years in pri­vate prac­tice, Sir El­lis was ap­point­ed So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al. In 1956, he suc­ceed­ed Sir Solomon Ho­choy as Deputy Colo­nial Sec­re­tary and for the greater part of his tenure he act­ed as Colo­nial Sec­re­tary. He be­came At­tor­ney Gen­er­al in 1957 and took on the mon­u­men­tal task of deal­ing with the many prob­lems that arose be­tween the Gov­er­nor and the new PNM Gov­ern­ment as le­gal ad­vis­er to both. In 1961, Sir El­lis was ap­point­ed Chief Jus­tice. He was in­volved in the draft con­sti­tu­tion, cul­mi­nat­ing in his at­ten­dance at the Marl­bor­ough House con­fer­ence in Venezuela from May 28 to June 8, 1962. How­ev­er, as Au­gust 1962 ap­proached, he was ap­point­ed Am­bas­sador to the Unit­ed States and Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the UN, while Sir Hugh Wood­ing be­came the first Chief Jus­tice of the new­ly-in­de­pen­dent Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Sir El­lis was be­stowed the Com­pan­ion of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 1960, and made a Knight Bach­e­lor (Kt Bach­e­lor) in 1963 and was one of the first to be award­ed T&T's high­est ho­n­our: the Trin­i­ty Cross (TC) in 1969. He al­so holds El Gran Cor­don, the high­est na­tion­al award in Venezuela. In 1972, when Sir Solomon re­tired as Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al it was an­nounced that Sir El­lis Clarke would suc­ceed him. He did so on Jan­u­ary 31, 1973. When T&T be­came a Re­pub­lic in 1976, Sir El­lis be­came the coun­try's first lo­cal Head of State. Sir El­lis faced one of his sternest tests as Pres­i­dent in March 1981, on the death of T&T's first Prime Min­is­ter Dr Er­ic Williams, when he had to name a suc­ces­sor.

He man­aged that tran­si­tion smooth­ly, nam­ing George Cham­bers as prime min­is­ter. It was tes­ta­ment to his suc­cess in han­dling such sig­nif­i­cant na­tion­al mat­ters, that Sir El­lis was twice elect­ed un­op­posed as Pres­i­dent in 1977 and 1982. He demit­ted of­fice in March 1987, but un­til his ill­ness a few weeks ago, re­mained ac­tive and was of­ten con­sult­ed on ma­jor le­gal and con­sti­tu­tion­al is­sues. He was mar­ried to La­dy Ermyn­trude Clarke (1921–2002) for al­most 50 years. They had three chil­dren-Pe­ter, a stock bro­ker, who is mar­ried to for­mer beau­ty queen Suzanne Tra­boulay; Mar­garet-Ann, who is mar­ried to Gor­don Fisken, of Ed­in­burgh, Scot­land, and Richard who died as a young child. Sir El­lis al­so had four grand­sons-John Pe­ter, Michael, Alexan­der and David-and one grand­daugh­ter, Ka­t­ri­na.

CAP­TIONS:

1. NO­VEM­BER 1984: Pres­i­dent El­lis Clarke and his wife, Ermyn­trude, dur­ing a pri­vate au­di­ence with Pope John Paul II at the Vat­i­can. The Pres­i­dent's aide-de-camp is at right.

2. MARCH 1976: Pres­i­dent Clarke and his fam­i­ly, daugh­ter Mar­garet-Ann, left, son Pe­ter, right, and his wife, Mrs Ermyn­trude Clarke.

3. Sir El­lis Clarke dur­ing the in­au­gu­ra­tion cer­e­mo­ny at which he be­came an hon­orary fel­low at Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege Lon­don. Sir James Lighthill, left, Provost of the Col­lege, reads the ci­ta­tion.

4. JU­LY 1984: Sir El­lis Clarke re­ceives com­mu­nion from Arch­bish­op An­tho­ny Pan­tin dur­ing Mass at the Cathe­dral of the Im­mac­u­late Con­cep­tion in Port-of-Spain.

5. AU­GUST 1984: Pres­i­dent El­lis Clarke on the dance floor with Jan­ice Crique, dur­ing a re­cep­tion for vis­it­ing par­tic­i­pants in the Pres­i­dent's Award Scheme

6. DE­CEM­BER 1981: Pres­i­dent El­lis Clarke cel­e­brat­ed his 64th birth­day on the same day he was re-elect­ed for his sec­ond term as Pres­i­dent. Here he cuts his birth­day cake with Mrs Ju­liana Cham­bers, wife of Prime Min­is­ter George Cham­bers.