Jane Clarke (1794-1859) was born in London into a family of merchants that specialized in luxurious goods ranging from fine art to wine. Clarke would continue the family practice of selling fashionable goods and in 1840 she had a shop located at 154 Regent Street where she sold lace and silk, textiles that were often used for dress and furnishing at the time. Located in the West End of London, Clarke's shop became well frequented, and her business would expand to include a shop in Manchester and Liverpool. Clarke’s business would also expand to include dressmaking. In the 1851 London census, Jane Clarke was listed at 170 Regent Street as a ‘Lace Dealer and Dressmaker’. She had a staff of thirty-one including eight workroom and shop assistants as well as fifteen milliners. For most of the nineteenth century, ‘milliner’ was used to describe a designer and maker of women’s dresses, rather than referring to hatmakers. One of these milliners was Elise Jaeger (1836-1913) who Clarke would sell her shop to in 1859. Elise would continue to operate at the Regent Street address as a court appointed dressmaker under the label ‘Madame Elise’. Clark passed away in 1859, soon after she transferred her business to Elise. After her death it was rumored that Clarke was so fond of lace that she had requested to be buried with it.

For more information on Jane Clarke see Jean Hemingway, ‘Millinery and Old Lace: Miss Jane Clarke of Regent Street,’ Textile History, 43:2, (2010), p. 200-222.