Obituary: Gerald Clarkson, a leading financial journalist with a keen sense of justice and deep disdain for hierarchy

Gerald Clarkson, an ex-Guards officer and investment banker whose Reuters career included UK Chief Financial Correspondent and head of the frontline Financial Reporting Unit, died peacefully on 7 August 2025. He was 86. Gerald made a major contribution to sharpening the Reuters financial file in the late 1970s to mid-1990s. His son James Clarkson writes:

Gerald William Wensley Clarkson was born in 1938 in London, the first son of Patrick Wensley Clarkson, MBE (1911-1969) and Barbara Mutch (1915-2005), who had been divorced from Patrick since the end of the war. His younger brother Ronald predeceased him by eight years. His father, a New Zealand immigrant, was an imposing London plastic surgeon whose wartime exploits — commanding No. IV maxillofacial unit in North Africa and Italy -- were followed by a successful Harley Street career. His was a world of 1950s London Society and rabble rousing with characters such as the artist Johnny Churchill, the nephew of Sir Winston, and marrying the penniless heiress Biddy Daubeny, all while pursuing a successful career in Guy’s Hospital and sharing rooms in Harley Street with fellow pioneering plastic surgeon Sir Harold Gillies.

He died young, just as Gerald was about to start his own family, leaving a void that Gerald filled with stories of his life and friendships. He often described his father as having just exploded, at the age of 58. Because of my father I have a full understanding of my granddad’s life and times, through tales of greatness and hilarity amid a chaotic personal life in the early post-war era. It may have been his father’s larger than life figure that helped to shape his son's subdued respect for authority, but his presence ran throughout my lifetime via my father’s storytelling, even influencing my choice of career in plastic surgery.

Gerald married Rachel Bowman on 8 July, 1967, the practice nurse in his father's Harley Street practice. They had two children: a son, James Clarkson (myself), and a daughter, Juliet Mayhew. Gerald became a grandfather to Rosalyn, Charley, Bryce and Lane. Rachel worked tirelessly to assist him over the past decade as his health declined.

Unlike his father's ambitious career in medicine, Gerald chose instead to live a private career on his own terms, providing a more stable family home than his father could. Perhaps it was a reaction to his father's social pretensions, or recognition of the authenticity of his achievements that caused Gerald to acquire a particular eye for those who considered themselves important, those in power, and those who perhaps pretended to be something they were not. Characteristically, his father put him through one of the best educations that money could buy, from Cothill to Eton to Oxford.

He spent his National Service in the Blues Horse Guards 1956-58. During this period, he served in Cyprus — to the end of his life he recounted elements of deep regret about the events that took place on that island and I know that they haunted him. Following his National Service, he entered Christ Church College to study history, although the abundant stories of colourful characters that he relates from those days sound more like Brideshead Revisited than a disciplined education. Quite why he turned his back on Britain in the mid-1960s I do not know, but I suspect it was to escape his father’s ever-present influence in his affairs. So many of his friends from those early days became figures from his past, with whom he seldom seemed to mix with entirely again. He maintained his membership at Bucks Club, London, to link him with the Blues and was in attendance there as recently as 2017 for a reunion dinner, which meant a great deal to him.

Nevertheless, his was a well-rounded, highly educated mind that started a new chapter in Canada, initially to work in investment banking. Shortly after settling in Canada his father died in 1969, but Gerald had already moved on and did not return for his funeral. He started his early career as an investment banker for Burns Fry when he lived in Toronto with Rachel shortly after their marriage. He once told me that he realised he was better at reporting about banks than banking itself and moved across to the Financial Times of Canada, where he found early success. His return to London in 1975 was shortly followed by his move to Reuters in the late ‘70s, rising to chief financial correspondent in the London Office in the late 1980s, where he delved into the underbelly of London's banking world with a jovial yet observant eye. He was reputed to be able to take bankers out to a liquid lunch, ply them with enough sauce to spill the beans, then head back to the office to two-finger type his copy before the evening deadline.

Gerald's world was one of tremendous humour and intelligent conversation, laced with a keen sense of justice in a landscape where he felt justice was in short supply. He was a sharp observer of the subtle untruths that lead to asymmetries between humans. His puckish observations often spotted the fool behind the façade. As a family, it sometimes seemed he surrounded us in a realm of stories — compelling, mirthful and often with a bad guy lurking in the framework. Others also experienced his story-telling, as recounted by his old friend from National Service John Comins, who describes his funny tales when they were in barracks together about the private lives of the military brass in laughable comedy, much like the yarns Jules Stewart shared from the Reuters days. While he was regarded by his juniors at Reuters as a benign manager, his personal disdain for hierarchy ran deep, no doubt straining ties with the higher-ups as he fiercely protected his team from the vagaries of C-suite interference. I can't help but identify with those sentiments, working as a plastic surgeon under the rule of the Healthcare Oligopoly in the US, a structure devolved from honour by millions of shareholders and a handful of barons. He trained me to see the emperor's new clothes when others saw only the powerful and respectable. To him, the world appeared full of jokers, fraudsters, dishonest people and a few good souls holding it together in the ranks despite the tomfoolery of the leading class. That zeal fuelled his efforts to lift the lid on the banking industry, as he put it “to find out what games they are up to”, drawing on his Oxford history training and a deep understanding of the spirit of the age.

As Jules Stewart recalls from working under Gerald on the Financial Reporting Unit as banking correspondent for more than six years: “My abiding memory is that of a person who possessed the rare quality of being able to exert authority without being authoritarian. Kindness, patience and leadership are the personal qualities that come to mind. Kindness above all: I recall one morning when one of our team, who shall remain nameless, stumbled into the second-floor bureau groggy from a heavy night out celebrating a birthday in Fleet Street style. Gerald patted him on the shoulder and said, 'Why don’t you go home and sleep it off? You’ll feel better tomorrow.' Make no mistake: there were moments when the temperament of Old Etonian, former Guards Captain Clarkson came to the fore. Gerald once approached me to say he was concerned that millions of pounds were exchanging hands every day in fine arts auctions, yet Reuters had no one to cover that market. He said he would like me to take on the task, along with my banking brief. 'But Gerald,' I said, 'I know nothing about the fine arts market.' Gerald stiffened, his fists bunched by his side. 'You find out!' he said.’”

I have always wanted to know the story behind why his colleagues at Reuters gave him a powerful chainsaw for his retirement in 1997. He never gave an explanation.

Regrettably, his many stories never made it to paper in retirement — one of my great sadnesses is that we lack the books he should have written. Gerald's was an oral tradition, as ancient as hunter-gatherers. His tales live in our heads and hearts, but not on the page. He was never better than when supporting the underdog and my most poignant example for this would be myself when I was a late adolescent attempting to get into medical school without a chance of success. He stepped in and picked me up at great expense, putting me through two additional years at Sixth Form college to reset in his eyes what was an unjust situation.

Jules Stewart recalls: “We kept up a much-valued friendship post-retirement from Reuters. He would often invite me to spend weekends at his home in rural Dorset, where the fond memories of 85 Fleet Street flowed like the fine wine he always kept on hand. In 2018, he suffered a severe stroke that robbed him of the ability to walk. A slow decline set in that took its toll on everything, except his jovial spirit.”

He was a complex man and naturally living under his scrutiny, particularly in those final years, wasn't always easy. But I miss my father, I miss his mind, and most of all, his stories, his conversation and his link back to a time I never lived yet feel I have been allowed to visit. ■