Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hay, Alexander (d.1807?)
HAY, ALEXANDER (d. 1807?), topographer, was a master of arts of probably a Scottish university, who took orders in the English church. He settled at Chichester, Sussex, where he taught at a school; became chaplain of St. Mary's Chapel in that city, and by December 1798 was vicar of Wisborough Green, Sussex. He never resided at Wisborough. About 1784 he wrote a small pamphlet entitled ‘The Chichester Guide,’ which passed through several editions. Twenty years afterwards, at the age of nearly seventy, he reissued it in an enlarged form as ‘The History of Chichester, interspersed with various Notes and Observations on the early and present State of the City, … its vicinity and the County of Sussex in general: with an Appendix containing the Charters of the City,’ &c., 8vo, Chichester, 1804. Lower, who states that Hay was vicar of Wisborough Green ‘between 1781 and 1807,’ failed to recover any information respecting his birth, education, and death (Worthies of Sussex, p. 337); his daughter, Lucy Hay, died at North Pallant, Chichester, on 9 Jan. 1861, at the age of seventy (Gent. Mag. 3rd ser. x. 233).
[Hay's Preface to the History of Chichester; information from the Vicar of Wisborough.]