Before I leave the Crossbasket John Kerr Clark story, I have one final and interesting thing to add. John Kerr Clark’s youngest son (of the five sons he had in Australia) went on to achieve great things, albeit away from Blantyre. The Dundee Courier Newspaper on Friday 6^th July 1951 best describes this man upon his death that same year. The article follows as published,

“Scot who made diplomatic history – Lord Inverchapel, the man who made diplomatic history by persuading Stalin to dine at the British Embassy during the war, died yesterday at Greenock. He was 69. Formerly Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, he was created a Baron in 1946, and assumed the title Lord Inverchapel of Loch Eck. It was on the shore of this Argyllshire loch that he acquired a 2000-acre farm when he retired. One of his hobbies was fishing. Lord Inverchapel died in Greenock’s Larkfield Hospital, where he was admitted several days ago. He first met Marshal Stalin during an air raid on Moscow. He always campaigned ardently for close British-Russian friendship.

In 1946 Lord Inverchapel succeeded Lord Halifax as British Ambassador in Washington, a post he held until 1948. He was Ambassador to China from 1937 to 1942, when he moved to Moscow. In 1929 he married the beautiful Maria Teresa Diaz Salas. of Santiago. The marriage was dissolved in 1945, but they remarried in 1948 and settled at Loch Eck-side. The fifth son of John Kerr Clark, of Crossbasket,’ Blantyre, Lanarkshire. Lord Inverchapel spent a lifetime in the Diplomatic and Foreign Office service.”

We leave the Clark Era with this remarkable photo from 1944. At an historic meeting of world leaders, deciding how to carve up and reinstate Europe if WW2 was to be won, there is Sir Archibald Clark, who used his middle name when knighted. Seated on the left is Marshal Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union, American President Roosevelt and Admiral Winston Churchill , British Prime Minister.

Standing at the back of the three most powerful men in the world, from left: Harry Hopkins, Vyacheslav M. Molotov, W. Averell Harriman, Sir Archibald Clark Kerr (to the right of Roosevelt), and Anthony Eden.