Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 11.djvu/23

 Clayton work of this master; but during his mastership the college declined in learning, its inmates 'being so overbusied with architecture that their other studies were intermitted, and the noise of axes and hammers disturbed them in their proper business' (, Hist. of St. John's, i. 190, 191, 196). Under his government puritanism was in great measure rooted out of the college. He was collated to a canonry of Peterborough on 21 June 1596; was vice-chancellor of the university of Cambridge in 1604; and was installed dean of Peterborough on 28 July 1607 (, Fasti, ed. Hardy, ii. 539). He died on 2 May 1612, and was buried in St. John's College chapel with great solemnity.

[Cambridge Antiquarian Communications, i. 349; Addit. MS. 5866, f. 8; Hacket's Life of Abp. Williams, pp. 17, 18, 22.]   CLAYTON, RICHARD (d. 1828), translator, was the son of John Clayton of Northall, Lancashire, by Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. Dr. Goodwin, rector of Tankersley, near Barnsley, Yorkshire, and nephew of Richard Clayton, serjeant-at-law and lord chief justice of the common pleas in Ireland, who by his will, dated 16 March 1770, left him his manors of Adlington and Worthington. He was created a baronet on 3 May 1774, was recorder of Wigan (1815-28), constable of Lancaster Castle, and British consul at Nantes, where he died on 29 April 1828. He was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and a member of the Inner Temple, where he was admitted in 1762, called in 1771, and reader in 1811. He married in 1780 Ann, daughter of Dr. Charles White, an eminent surgeon of Manchester, and left an only daughter, who married Lieutenant-general Robert Browne. Lady Clayton died at Cheltenham on 23 Nov. 1837.

Clayton published the following translations and other works: 1. 'On the Cretins of the Vallais,' a paper in the 'Memoirs' of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, 1790. 2. 'Connubia Florum Latino carmine demonstrata auctore D. De la Croix, notas et observationes adjecit,' Bath, 1791, 8vo. 3. 'A Critical Inquiry into the Life of Alexander the Great by the Ancient Historians, translated from the French of the Baron de St. Croix,' Bath, 1793, 4to, which he rendered by his additions more valuable than the original. 4. 'Memoirs of the House of Medici, from the French of M. Tenhove, with notes and observations,' Bath, 1797, 4to, 2 vols. 5. 'The Science of Legislation, from the Italian of Filangieri,' 1806, 8vo. 6. 'A Treatise on Greyhounds,' in the 'Pamphleteer,' vol. ix. 1817.

[Baines's Lancashire, 1870, ii. 165; Literary Memoirs of Living Authors (by Rivers), 1798, i.101; Biog. Dict. of Living Authors, 1816, p. 66; Burke's Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies, 1844, Addenda, p. 600; De Quincey's Autob. Sketches, 1854, ii. 67, where he writes of Sir R. Clayton having honourably distinguished himself in literature by translating and improving the work of Tenhove.]   CLAYTON, ROBERT (1629–1707), merchant and politician, was born at Bulwick, Northamptonshire, on 29 Sept. 1629, being one of several children of a small farmer called Clayton or Cleeton (described by Le Neve as 'carpenter or joyner, a poor man of no family'), who resided in that parish. At an early age he was apprenticed to his uncle, a London scrivener, of the name of Robert Abbot, who left him a large sum of money. Among the manuscripts of W.M. More Molyneux of Losely Park, near Guildford, is a document witnessed by Abbot and his nephew, who there signed his name as Robert Cleton, in 1648 (Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. 678). Alderman John Morris was a fellow-apprentice and partner in business, and on the death of Morris in February 1682 without issue, his estates came to his old friend, Clayton, who by his own exertions, aided by these accessories of wealth, amassed a fortune sufficient to give him a commanding influence in the councils of the corporation of London.

He was a member of the Scriveners' and Drapers' Companies, alderman of Cordwainer ward from 1670 to 1676, and of the ward of Cheap from that year to 1688. In 1671 he was elected sheriff (being knighted at the Guildhall on 30 Oct.), and elected as lord mayor in 1679-80, when the pageants performed at his cost on the day (29 Oct. 1679) of 'initiation and instalment' were described by Thomas Jordan in a tract entitled 'London in Luster.' All his influence in commerce was exerted on the side of the protestant or whig interest, and he became one of its chief partisans. He was returned to parliament for the city of London in 1678-9, in 1679, and in 1680-1. To the last of these parliaments, which was summoned to meet at Oxford, heand his three whig colleagues in the representation of the city came in great state, with troops of supporters wearing on their hats ribbons with the words 'No popery, no slavery,' and at the request of his constituents he moved for leave to bring in a bill for excluding any papists from succeeding to the English throne. Clayton was accused, with Slingsby Bethel [q. v.], Cornish, and other champions of whiggism, of having endeavoured to induce Fitz-Harris to make false confessions on the popish plot, but the charge was merely 