Nicholas Clayton 

Rev. Nicholas Clayton (1733-1797), the son of Samuel and Elizabeth Clayton of Enfield, was a former student of Philip Doddridge (class of 1748); he also studied at Glasgow (he later received an honorary D.D. from Edinburgh) before commencing his ministry at Boston, Lincolnshire, in 1759. He served as minister at the Independent chapel at the Octagon in Liverpool, 1763-76, and at Benn's Garden, Liverpool, 1776-81; he became a tutor at Warrington Academy in 1781, but in 1785 returned to the ministry at High Pavement, Nottingham, serving for a time under George Walker before becoming pastor of the congregation, a position he retained until 1794, when he returned in retirement to Liverpool.  (For more on Clayton, see John Crosby Warren, The High Pavement chapel, Nottingham, A Biographical Catalogue of Portraits [Nottingham, n.d.], p. 12; see also some 126 letters by Clayton now belonging to the Unitarian Collection (formerly kept in. the archives of the Manchester Unitarian College) at John Rylands University Library of Manchester). He first appears in Doddridge Family Correspondence in 1750, while still a student at Northampton but possibly already with his eyes aimed at Doddridge's daughter, Mary. He sends Mrs. Doddridge letters from Glasgow in 1752 and seriously courts Mary Doddridge in 1754-55 when she was at Norwich and he was still at Glasgow (he did not complete a degree there if he was a student for a time). Nicholas Clayton subscribed to Volume 4 of Doddridge's  Family Expositor in 1753, as did his mother at Enfield Park, the only two Claytons to subscribe to that volume. A Mr. Clayton subscribed to Volume 5 in 1756, most likely Nicholas once again.