  We introduce the ramified partition algebra, which is a physically motivated
and natural generalization of the partition algebra. We investigate its
representation theory and demonstrate quasi--heredity under certain conditions.
Under these conditions we determine an index set for simple modules and
construct standard modules with this index set.
  We construct tensor space representations of certain non--semisimple
specializations, and show how to use these to build clock model transfer
matrices in arbitrary physical dimensions.
