ABSTRACT
William Roscoe earned national and international renown for his biographies of Lorenzo de' Medici and Leo X and yet he never travelled abroad to undertake any primary research. The younger William Clarke and William Roscoe had been friends since their youth, but how and when they first met is unknown. According to the earliest Liverpool Directory his father, William Clarke senior, was a linen draper living over his business premises on the east side of Derby Square. It is interesting that Clarke professed to have little liking for the world of business, yet he did on occasion refer to some commercial opportunities he thought might merit consideration. Clarke wrote from the Spanish town of Sanlucar de Barrameda that he was seriously considering the question of investing in a business of ten years' standing carried on there by the British consul and his partner.
