Herbert Lincoln Clarke, acknowledged to be the greatest cornetist of his time, was certainly the most celebrated. Not only was he a virtuoso cornet player, but "an excellent composer, an accomplished violinist, a prolific and highly talented arranger for a band, and a most distinguished band conductor" (Johnston, Jan. 1972, p. 44). As well, he wrote several study books for the cornet that are still used today.
In the spring of 1881 he attended a concert of The American Band of Providence, Rhode Island, at the Horticultural Pavilion in Toronto and he heard Bowen R. Church play a cornet solo. Later, Clarke was to remember this event as the most significant of his childhood. He taught himself to play the cornet, using his brother Edwin's instrument. At about the same time, he joined the Toronto Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Dr. F. H. Torrington, as a violinist. The cornet had captured his heart, however. In 1882, he joined the Queen's Own Rifles band as the last chair of a 12-man cornet section in order to obtain a government-issue instrument on which to practise.
In 1893, he joined Sousa's Band as a cornet soloist. After playing at the Chicago Exposition in the same year, he left to play with various other bands, continuing to do so over the next five years. In 1898 he returned to Sousa's band, with whom he toured extensively, and later became Sousa's assistant director, conducting the band in many recording sessions. He resigned from Sousa's band in September of 1917 and returned to Canada to lead the Anglo-Canadian Leather Company Band in Huntsville, Ontario from 1918 to 1923. Under Clarke's leadership, this band became one of the most celebrated commercial bands in North America.