Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Clay, William Keatinge
CLAY, WILLIAM KEATINGE (1797–1867), antiquary, was born in 1797, and, having been ordained deacon in 1823 by the Bishop of Salisbury, became curate of Greenwich. He was ordained priest in the following year by the Bishop of London. He was curate of Paddington in 1830, and of Blunham, Bedfordshire, in 1834. In 1835 he took the degree of B.D. at Jesus College, Cambridge, as a 'ten-year' man, under the statute of Elizabeth (now repealed); he became minor canon of Ely Cathedral in 1837, and was subsequently appointed 'prælector theologicus' and librarian of the cathedral. In 1842 he was instituted to the perpetual curacy of Holy Trinity, Ely, and was collated in 1854 by Dr. Turton, bishop of Ely, to the vicarage of Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire, where he died on 26 April 1867.
His works are:
- 'Explanatory Notes on the Prayer Book Version of the Psalms,' London, 1839, 8vo.
- 'The Book of Common Prayer illustrated; so as to show its various modifications, the date of its several parts, and the authority on which they rest,' London, 1841, 8vo.
- 'An Historical sketch of the Prayer Book,' London, 1849, 8vo.
- Histories of the parishes of Waterbeach (1859), Landbeach (1861), and Horningsey (1865) in Cambridgeshire. These three parochial histories, printed separately by the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, were collected into one volume with a common title-page, Cambridge, 1865, 8vo.
- 'A History of the Parish of Milton in the county of Cambridge,' edited by the Rev. W. G. Searle for the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, 1869.
He edited for the Parker Society 'Liturgies and Occasional Forms of Prayer set forth in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth,' 1847, and 'Private Prayers put forth by authority during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. With an appendix containing the Litany of 1544,' Cambridge, 1851. He also assisted in the edition of the 'Book of Common Prayer' issued by the Ecclesiastical History Society in 1849-54, and in the edition of Wheatley's 'Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer,' reprinted in 1858 by the syndics of the Cambridge University Press.
[Memoir prefixed to History of Milton; Cambridge Chronicle, 4 May 1867; Graduati Cantab. (1856), p. 79; Gent. Mag. ccxxi. 825.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.69
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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