Life
1695-1758; b. Dublin; ed. Westminster and TCD; fellow, 1714; LLD, 1722;
DD, 1730; travelled, inherited estate in Lancashire, 1728; Bishop of Killala,
1730; translated to the Cork and Ross, 1735; to Clogher, 1745; anonymously
published An Essay on Spirit (1750) which gives an account
of his Arian outlook and contains a plea for religious toleration of Catholics,
Jews, and Quakers, and is also regarded as the source of the metaphysical
idea upon which Charles Johnstone based Chrysal, or the Adventures
of a Guinea (1760-65); denied see of Tuam, 1752; issued A Defence
of An Essay on Spirit (1752); followed by Some Thoughts on Self-Love,
Innate Ideas, Free Will, Occasioned by Reading Mr. Hume’s Works
(1753), along with Vindication of the Old and New Testaments (3
vols., 1752-57), containing an unorthodox third part; made speech in the
Irish House of Lords calling for deletion of the Athanasian and Nicene
Creeds from the Book of Common Prayer, resulted in widespread calls for
his resignation and threats of prosecution for heresy, 1757; sermons and
theological works, 1738-57; the portrait of Clayton and his wife by James
Lantham in the NGI, became the subject of a poem by Paul Durcan in a NGI-commissioned
collection (Crazy About Women, 1990); his home on St. Stephen’s Green became Iveagh House. ODNB FDA OCIL
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Works
An Essay on the Spirit (Dublin 1750); A Defence of An Essay
on the Spirit (London 1752); A Vindication &c., 3 vols.
(1752, 1754, 1757); Some Thoughts on Self-Love, Innate Ideas, Free
Will, Occasioned by Reading Mr Hume’s Works (London 1753). There
is a bibliography by M. Halpin (TCD thesis 1985).
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Criticism
Richard Ryan, ‘Robert Clayton, Bishop of Clogher’, in Biographia
Hibernica: Irish Worthies (1821), Vol. I, p.471; A. Kippis, ‘Robert
Clayton’, in Biographica Britannica [2nd edn.] (London 1784),
Vol. 3 pp.620-28; [anon.,] Bishop Clayton on the Nicene and Athanasian
Creeds, Republished With A Memoir (Dublin 1876) [TCD copy contains
MS adds. and biog. by W. D. Reeves); David Berman, ‘Berkeley, Clayton,
and An Essay on Spirit’, in Journal of History of Ideas.
Vol. XXVII (1971), pp.367-78; A. R. Winnett, ‘An Irish Heretic, Bishop
Robert Clayton of Clogher’, in Studies in Church History,
Vol. 9 (1972), pp.311-21.
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References
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 1, selects A Vindication of the Histories of
the Old and New Testament, Pt. III [797-98]; also includes remarks,
leaning towards free-thinking and deism [760]; his rebellious An Essay on Spirit (1750) caused an uproar and calls for his resignation
[764]; fury unleashed against him [765]. BIOG. [806], closely associated
with Berkeley’s Bermuda scheme, introduced Berkeley into House of
Lords, near prosecution and precipitate death. [WORKS & CRIT, as supra.]
R. E. & C. Ward, eds., Letters of Charles O’Conor of Belan[a]gare (1988) cites Some Thoughts [ … &c.] as 1751 in Notes.
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Notes
Crazy about Clayton: Clayton is the subject of a portrait
featured in Durcan’s Crazy About Women collection (Nat. Gallery,
1990); the portrait of Clayton and his Wife is by James Latham
(1696-1747), on loan to the National Gallery of Ireland from the Representative
Church Body [see Brian de Breffny, ed., Ireland: A Cultural Encyclopaedia,
1982 p.131].
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