Dr Clement John Baker was born in England in 1872. He qualified as a doctor at Middlesex Hospital and, in 1901, volunteered to serve as a surgeon in the South African War, where he was appointed to the hospital at Bloemfontein. He returned home in 1902, having been awarded a medal and two clasps. On 1 Jan 1903, after taking a course at the School of Tropical Medicine, he was appointed as Medical Officer to Uganda, and later became the first Chief Medical and Sanitary Officer for the Protectorate. He attended a second course at the School of Tropical Medicine in 1914. Baker died at sea in 1922 while on his way home to undertake a third course, possibly at the same school.

While in Uganda, Baker and his wife did a great deal of work in the sleeping sickness camps. He was the first man to isolate the trypanosome in two apparently healthy Africans, who later contracted the disease and died of it. He also did a great deal to prevent the spread of bubonic plague in Uganda by the control of rats, tracing the source of the infection to the import of cotton from the north, and working for better town planning in Kampala.

Lieutenant George Baker, Dr Clement Baker's grandfather, fought in the battle of Waterloo. In 1822, he made the journey from Ceylon (Sri Lanka), where his regiment was stationed, to England, for the sake of his health, choosing to travel up the Red Sea and overland rather than around the Cape of Good Hope. During the journey, two passengers contracted the bubonic plague, which resulted in the crew and passengers being placed in quarantine, both in Alexandria and in the Lazaretto at Valetta in Malta.