Sir John Clarke Wildman, 1st Baronet is discussed by Philip José Farmer in Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life. Born John Wildman, he became a distinguished doctor and was raised to a baronetcy in 1785, whereupon he coupled his surname with that of his mother, Tabitha Clarke.
In 1843, at what must have been a great age, Sir John blew himself to bits at his home in rural Derbyshire, having been engaged in what was believed to have been an alchemical experiment.
Sir John and Lady Wildman (the former Matthiette de Pierson) were the parents of the even-more notorious Sir Patrick Clarke Wildman. It may be noted that Sir John was the earliest Wildman ancestor of Doc Savage that Farmer was able to trace in his researches, although in Tarzan Alive he indicated that the Wildman family were related to the Viscounts Barrington.