Catalogue description Letters received by Rev. Nicholas Clayton (1730-1797)

Nicholas Clayton was the son-in-law of James Nicholson (1718-1773). According to p. 61 he was born on 10 Dec. 1730. On leaving Glasgow University he entered the ministry at Boston, Lincolnshire. In 1763 he became joint minister at the Octagon Chapel, Liverpool, "... the promoters of which had the design of introducing a liturgy which dissenters and members of the Established Church might join in using ...". In 1765 Nicholas Clayton married Dorothy Nicholson (1741-1785), the "James Nicholsons" being members of the Octagon Chapel congregation. The Octagon experiment continued for 13 years but the chapel was closed in 1776 "... as it was not supported by the members of the church who had professed to be dissatisfied with the Book of Common Prayer ...". On this closure he went as joint minister to "the Protestant Dissenters'" Chapel at Benns Garden.

In 1781 he left Benns Garden to become Divinity Tutor at the Warrington Academy, where he remained until its closure in 1783.

After his wife's death in 1785 Rev. Nicholas Clayton became minister at the High Pavement, Nottingham. He resigned from this ministry in 1793 and, after some visiting, settled to live with Matthew Nicholson (1746-1819) (see 920 NIC/10) at Richmond Row, Everton, in 1785. He died there in May 1797.

According to p. 65 "At his [Nicholas Clayton's] request many of his letters were destroyed" and to p. 68 "His manuscript sermons remained at Richmond, and ... were given by Thomas Nicholson to the Rev. Dr. Shepherd and are probably now in the Shepherd MSS. at Manchester College, Oxford.

See pp. 61-68, also Dictionary of National Biography, 1887, Vol. XI, p. 16.