Charles Clark (publisher)
Charles David Lawson Clark was a British publisher and lawyer, who was an authority on the law of copyright.Life
Clark was born in London and studied at Edinburgh Academy before reading law at Jesus College, Oxford. He was an editor for the legal publishers Sweet and Maxwell and was then called to the bar by Inner Temple in 1960. He then worked for Penguin Books, commissioning various titles on the "Pelican" list and the New Penguin Shakespeare. He was appointed managing director of Penguin Education in 1966, and also of Allen Lane/Penguin Press in 1967. In 1972 he moved to Hutchinson to succeed Sir Robert Lusty as Managing Director of the publishing group], with authors including Frederick Forsyth and Anthony Burgess. From 1980 - 1984 he was Chief Executive of Hutchinson Ltd, which included the publishing operation and the printing company.
He assisted the Publishers' Association with its submissions to the Whitford committee on copyright law, which led to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. He became legal advisor to the Association after leaving Hutchinson in 1984, working with copyright issues at national and international level. Other work was published under the title The Answer to the Machine is in the Machine and Other Collected Writings. His knowledge of copyright law led to him being described by Mark Le Fanu, of the Society of Authors, as "the peer of contracts experts, Lord Clark of Copyright".
