which he retained until his promotion. Full details of the disturbances of 1808 and 1812 will be found in A. Prentice's 'Historical Sketches of Manchester' (London, 1851). The promptitude with which the disorder was arrested, and the absence of any charges against the military in the accounts, even of those most disposed to side with the operatives, suggest that Clay displayed a firmness and discretion fully entitling him to the recognition his services received. Before leaving Manchester, in June 1813, on promotion to major-general and appointment to the staff in the West Indies, he was waited on by a deputation of gentlemen, who presented him with a sword valued at a hundred guineas. A few days later it was notified that the prince regent had been pleased to transfer Clay to the home staff, and he was appointed to the command of the great depot of prisoners of war on the north road at Norman Cross, Huntingdonshire, which he held until September 1814, when, in consequence of the termination of the war, his duties ceased. Clay attained the rank of lieutenant-general in 1825, and general on 23 Nov. 1841. He was in receipt of a pension for distinguished services. He died at his residence, 11 Baring Crescent, Exeter, on 13 Dec. 1846, in the eightieth year of his age.
[Army Lists; A. Prentice's Hist. Sketches of Manchester, pp. 30-82; Wheeler's Manchester (London, 1836), pp. 103-5; Gent. Mag. new ser. xxviii. p. 313; Woolmer's Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 19 Dec. 1846.]
CLAY, Sir WILLIAM (1791–1869), politician, born in London in 1791, was the son of George Clay, an eminent merchant, into whose firm Clay was admitted at an early age. In 1832 he was elected M.P. in the liberal interest for the newly created Tower Hamlets constituency. He occupied the seat till 1857. He was appointed secretary to the board of control in 1839 under Lord Melbourne's ministry. This office he held till the retirement of his party in 1841, when he was created a baronet. Clay was a magistrate for Middlesex and Westminster, and was also chairman of the Grand Junction and Southwark and Vauxhall water companies. He died at Cadogan Place, Chelsea, London, on 13 March 1869. In 1822 Clay married Harriet, daughter of Thomas Dickason of Fulwell Lodge, Middlesex, and had issue three sons and six daughters.
Clay published the following pamphlets:
- 'Speech at the Meeting of the Electors of the Tower Hamlete,' 1834.
- 'Speech on Moving for a Committee to inquire into the Act permitting the Establishment of Joint-Stock Banks,' 2nd edit. 1837, replied to by 'Vindex,' 1836.
- 'Remarks on the Expediency of restricting the Issue of Promissory Notes to a Single Issuing Body,' 1844.
- 'Remarks on the Water Supplv of London,' 2nd edit. 1849, replied to by T. Coates, in 'Statement of the Plan of supplying London with Water, proposed in the "Metropolitan Waterworks Bill," ' &c. 1850.
- 'Speech on moving the Second Heading of the Church Rate Abolition Bill,' 1856.
[Times, 17 March 1869, p. 12; Men of the Time, 1868, p. 183; Burke's Peerage and Baronetage for 1869, p. 232.]
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'
