Josiah Clerk (1639–1714) studied medicine at Cambridge University, and later held several offices at the Royal College of Physicians. He became a fellow in 1675, and in 1708 was elected president. However, ‘being indisposed by many bodyly infirmityes, and also aged’, he was unable to carry out the duties of president and resigned, holding instead the position of treasurer until his death. Clerk died aged 75 at his home in Fenchurch Street, London. According to his will, he desired ‘to be decently, tho' very privately, buried by night in the vault in St Olave Hart Street Church, where my honoured mother and my children lye, if it may be done with conveniency’. The portrait is by an unknown artist and dated to around 1690.