 His paternal grandmother was Barbara Blamire, a member of the Blamire family of Cumberland and cousin of the politician William Blamire MP and of the poet Susanna Blamire.Richard Clement was educated by private tutors before he enrolled, at the age of 14, in the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, as a Gentleman Cadet, where he became Head of the School in his second year before leaving the following year.Like his father and his brother Hampden Clement, Richard Clement was a polymath who displayed a prodigious ability in mathematics, music, architectural draughtsmanship from an early age, and sustained a great interest in both science and the fine arts throughout his life.