Marianna Clark, LCA trustee and our oldest and longest-term resident, sadly died at the age of 98.
Please find a tribute to Dr Marianna Clark that appeared in the Somerset Live on 5th November 2020
A woman who could strike up a conversation with anyone she met, and gave her life to Bath, has died this week aged 98.
Dr Marianna Clark lived in the city for more than 60 years, serving as a city councillor, Lady Mayoress, and Justice of the Peace. She was also "instrumental" in preserving Bath's history.
Her daughter, Harriet Hall, said: “My mother was always grateful for what life gave her.
“A lot of people have said what good company she was. She did love meeting people and she was very, very open.
“As children, we would be embarrassed when she would stop the car, and give people some sort of information that she thought they ought to have.”
The Museum of Bath at Work was her mother’s “proudest achievement”, Ms Hall said.
“It all started in 1976 with Bowler’s old lemonade factory, which was due to be demolished. My mother saved Mr Bowler’s office and the stock from the factory and it’s now in the museum,” she said.
Stuart Burroughs, the museum’s only member of staff, remembered Dr Clark fondly.
“She was instrumental in bringing the Museum of Bath at Work into existence and supporting it through thick and thin.
“She was a great support to me personally and she was always willing to muck in; she would do the washing-up if that was what was required,” he said.
Born in Germany in 1922, to a Polish mother and German father, Dr Clark came to England as a refugee in 1939.
She enrolled at the Polish School of Medicine, Edinburgh, and three years later married Stephen Clark; great-grandson of the shoe-shop mogul.
Together they had four children and, in 1947, Marianna completed her degree in medicine at the University of Edinburgh.
In 1952, she travelled to Bath to start work as a part-time doctor. Four years later, she moved to a house near Lansdown Crescent, where she lived for 64 years until her death.
Dr Clark went on to be a city councillor and was pleasantly surprised in the 1970s, when the Mayor, who was a woman, asked her to take on the role of Lady Mayoress.
Over the course of her life, she was also a trustee of St John’s Hospital; which runs several old people's homes in Bath.
"She used to go round the homes and ask all the residents how they were doing," her daughter said.
With the Abbey Treasure Sale, Dr Clark helped raise money to clean the west front of Bath Abbey and, as an avid concert-goer in later years, she supported the Mozart Festival and the Bath Festival.
“The musicians even used to come and play the piano in her house,” Ms Hall said.
Dr Clark was also a member of Lansdown Crescent Society until she died.
"She used to sit outside and talk to people going by. She would say, ‘I don’t know you, but who are you? And how are you?’," her daughter said.
Dr Clark passed away peacefully at home on Monday, November 2. A celebration of her life will take place when circumstances permit.