Quick Facts
Biography
Theodora Roosevelt Clarke (born 1985) is a British Conservative Partypolitician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Stafford since the 2019 general election.
Early life and career
Clarke grew up in the village of Bibury in Gloucestershire. She is the daughter of Sir Charles Mansfield Tobias Clarke, 6th Baronet and his second wife Teresa de Chair, a daughter of Somerset de Chair. Her younger brother is athlete, Lawrence Clarke. Clarke also has a younger sister, Augusta. She is the niece, by marriage, of the Leader of the House of Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg. Clarke is a distant relation of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
She was privately educated at Downe House School in Newbury, Berkshire. She studied art history at the Newcastle University and the Courtauld Institute of Art, specialising in Russian art. Clarke worked for the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the British auction house Christie's before founding Russian Art and Culture, an online arts magazine in 2011. She was also a co-founder of the Association of Women in the Arts, and later founded the Coalition for Global Prosperity.
Parliamentary career
Clarke was selected as the Conservative candidate for Stafford on 26 September 2019. The incumbent Conservative MP Jeremy Lefroy had previously announced that he would be standing down at the next election. She was elected as MP in the 2019 general election with a majority of 14,377 (28.1%). Clarke had previously contested the Bristol East seat in the 2015 and 2017 general election. She is a member of the International Development Committee since March 2020.
