The Richard Ryland-John Clayton Controversy, 1804-1805

The Richard Ryland-John Clayton Pamphlet War, 1804-1805

   The Ryland-Clayton controversy provides a fascinating look at the contentiousness that often plagued Dissenting congregations at this time, as well as further evidence supp­orting Flower’s characterization of Clayton as a high-minded, over-bearing, hypocritical minister. Richard and Harriet Ryland joined John Clayton’s congregation at the Weigh House in London in the mid-1780s.  Richard Ryland had attended there since he was a teenager, and over the years made significant financial contributions to the church. At the time of his controversy with Clayton, he was serving as a messenger from the church to the Committee of Protestant Dissenting Deputies.  In 1803, Clayton paid a pastoral visit to the Rylands concerned about reports he had heard that the Rylands were becoming “dissipated by going to the theatre, neglecting family instruction, prophaning the sabbath, and allowing the taking of God’s name in vain in their home,” as well as encouraging dancing and card-playing (Clayton, Counter and Impartial Statement 11). Ryland refuted these charges of impropriety, noting that other members of Clayton’s congregation engaged in similar activities, even reminding Clayton that he (Clayton) and some of his sons had also been seen at the theatre.  One reason for Clayton’s sudden disapproval of  Ryland may have resulted from his rejection, at a church meeting in 1802, of a proposal by Clayton prohibiting any member who declared himself bankrupt from being allowed to partake of communion until their actions had been examined by a church committee (Ryland, A second edition of the “Statement” 10-15).  Ryland believed this tantamount to associating all bankrupt individuals as lacking in moral character, which he believed was simply not true and contrary to the political rights of an Englishmen (Flower, of course, would have agreed wholeheartedly with Ryland on this point).  He argued that Clayton’s proposal would “on all future occasions of commercial insolvency ... punish a man first, and afterwards try whether he was guilty; and while he was perhaps merely unfortunate, to deprive him of the consolations of religion, in the depth of worldly distress” (49-50). 

   Clayton, as Flower had discovered in the 1780s, was never one to be rebuffed, and accordingly turned against Ryland, eventually turning the church against the his family as well.  When Ryland decided to move his church membership to W. B. Collyer’s Independent congregation at Peckham, he asked for letters of testimonial from his former church, only to be refused by Clayton, who informed him that, due to his family’s continued improprieties, he could not in good conscience ask the church to provide testimonials for Ryland and his wife.  Mrs. Ryland, infuriated by Clayton’s response, demanded testimonials from the church nevertheless.  Clayton, to satisfy her demands, called a church meeting on 30 October 1804, at which time the church not only refused to grant testim­on­ials to the Rylands but also disqualified them as members of the church until they publicly avowed “a change of sentiment, on the subject of theatrical amusements” (Ryland, A second edition of the “Statement” 48).  A bitter pamphlet war immediately ensued between Clayton and the Rylands, primarily debating the social practices of theatre attendance, card playing, and dancing, long held in contempt by Dissenters.  These pamphlets became the talk of the town among the Dissenters, as Eliza discovered during her visit to London recorded in letter 103. 

   Ryland launched the first barrage in late November 1804 with his Statement of some circumstances relative to a late withdrawment from a Dissenting Independent congregation in London (Thomas Conder, Flower’s friend, printed the majority of these pamphlets, and apparently they sold well, as noted by Eliza’s comments in letter 103).  In this work, Ryland defended his family and their practices, noting numerous instances of similar activities by members of the Weigh-house, including the Claytons.  Clayton immediately responded with A counter and impartial statement of circumstances relative to a late withdrawment from a Dissenting Independent church, printing 25 letters that passed between himself and the Rylands bet­ween 5 October and 1 November 1804. He denounced the Rylands as a family who “have been permitted, but not desired as church members, for many years past” (7) and who had now made him “the victim of persecution” (37).  In language that must have struck Flower with incredible irony, Clayton asserts, “I am no ‘persecutor;’ that opprobrious appellation does not attach to me” (41).   In defending his position on bankrupts, Clayton avowed the same sentiments he had expressed to Flower after the latter’s financial deb­acle in the early 1780s, arguing that “it is generally acknowledged in the commercial world, that the majority of bankruptcies is occasioned by speculation, neglect, or extravagance … If this be true, certainly it is incumbent on the official guardians of religion and morality to scrutinize those insolvencies, which, owing to their connexion with religious communities, might be considered as receiving their sanction, if suffered to pass unnot­iced” (14).  

   Ryland countered in January 1805 with Remarks on a late publication entitled A counter and impartial statement, &c.  By the author of the Statement, which was promptly answered by Clayton’s A counter and impartial statement of circumstances relative to a late withdrawment from a Dissenting Independent church. To which are added notes and an appendix, designed as a reply to Mr. Ryland’s “Remarks.”  To Ryland (a political reformist like Flower), Clayton had become nothing less than an ecclesiastical tyrant.  “The moment Mr. Clayton’s perfect infallibility was called in question,” Ryland writes, “either as an expositor of the New Testament, or a judge of private morality, it degenerated into somewhat far more like the reproaches of an arbit­rary monarch, accustomed to the blind submission of surrounding slaves, than the conversation of a free-born Englishman with an Englishman freeborn, privileged to read his Bible for himself; and when he had read it, and prayed over it, during many thoughtful years, to claim an equal right in judging of its contents; and that it ended, on the part of Mr. C., in prophetic denunciations of temporal judgments the most cruel, if he persisted” (13).  

   Since some of Clayton’s accusations were aimed at herself, Harriet Ryland could keep quiet no longer, entering the fray with An address to the Rev. John Clayton, in answer to those parts of the “Counter-Statement,” which relate to Mrs. Ryland.  To which is subjoined the whole of the suppressed correspondence to Mr. Clayton, from Mrs. Ryland, a pamphlet Eliza found particularly amusing given its comments about Mrs. Clayton (this is the pamphlet “no. 3” Eliza mentions in letter 103). In her pamphlet, Harriet Ryland unleashed a scathing attack upon Clayton and his family for their own blatant hypocrisies, especially Mrs. Clayton’s vanity. She writes, “Wherein is it more sinful, that I, and my daughters, should be dressed to dine with a large party, than that Mrs. Clayton should adorn herself in a brown, curled wig, a-la-mode? or on what principle can you prove it more sinful in a woman, or a girl, to wear a hat and feathers, than is a coat cut in the very newest fashion, a cravat tied in the smartest trim, and the hair arranged altogether in stile, in the minister of the Weigh-house, and his sons?” (19).  Clayton preached often on women excessively adorning their hair and wearing costly gold, yet, she notes, he himself wears two or three gold rings on his fingers! (20).  “As to the brown, curled wig, worn by your wife, the mother of your sons, a ‘mother in Israel,’ and an aged woman—I confess, that I find much in it to disapprove, and can offer nothing as a palliation; for to me, on every hair, of every curl, is written vanity” (20).  She wondered “how the same things can be criminal in your hearers, and innocent in yourself, your wife, and your family?” (21).  She also commented on his rebuke of the Rylands’ reading habits, noting that Mrs. Clayton often confessed that she could not make it through the day without reading her paper.   Mrs. Ryland notes that there was not much difference between reading a play and reading a newspaper (22).[1]  She concluded her pamphlet with two letters to her daughter, who had been reprimanded at school for demonstrating a haughty attitude.  In a letter brimming with Dissenting piety, Mrs. Ryland admonishes her daughter to examine herself in light of spiritual values-values that, according to Clayton, Mrs. Ryland did not possess. 

   In February 1805, Richard Ryland followed his wife’s pamphlet with A second edition of “The Statement,” “The Address,” and “The Remarks” on the “Counter-Statement,” relative to a late withdrawment from a Dissenting Independent congregation.  With a Postscript, by the writer of the Statement. In March 1805 Clayton, obviously desiring the final say in this affair, published through Conder another pamphlet titled Letters occasioned by a recent controversy between R. R. Esq. and the Rev. J. C., a series of artificial letters in which Clayton commented further on the evils of play-going, acting, excessive socializing, the necessity of reproving erring Christians, and the biblical requirement of true believers separating themselves from unrepentant individuals.   In language much like he used against Flower, Clayton argued that not only should heretics be cut off, but so should those “who stain the purity of the church by their vicious conduct.  When they have received reproof and exhortation, according to the rules laid down by our Lord and his Apostles, without evincing signs of penitence, it is high time to obey that injunction, ‘Therefore, put away from among yourselves, that wicked person.’ Unless he be cut off, they that are without will imagine that he is countenanced even by those, who walk consistently with their profession” (52). In a statement that Flower would use against Clayton in his libel trial of 1808, Clayton argued that he had no choice but to publicly defend himself from Ryland’s accusations, for

Defamation when published as truth, is usually considered such, till it be publicly contradicted: A man’s usefulness often depends considerably upon his reputation, and if this be taken away, he is robbed of that which is “better than riches.” If aspersions are cast upon a religious character, the world will most readily give credit to them; and therefore I conclude with a celebrated moralist, (I think Dr. Johnson) that “it is lawful to publish the faults of others, in our necessary defence and vindication.  When a man cannot conceal another’s misconduct, without betraying his own innocency, no charity requires him to suffer himself to be defamed, to save the reputation of another man.”  (38-39)

   The controversy was not confined to Clayton and the Rylands, however.  Clayton was also taken to task for his actions against the Rylands and the manner and tone of his pamphlets in A Letter to John Clayton, the Elder, occasioned by his Counter and Impartial Statement, &c., signed by “Obadiah Christian, one of the people called Quakers” (John Styles [1782-1849]) and published in early 1805.  The writer considered Clayton to have acted in a manner “unworthy” of his profession, and that “by the arrogance and haughtiness of [his] mind” had “done much harm” (5, 6). The Quaker sensed the same spirit of haughtiness in Clayton that Flower had endured for so many years (see Flower’s comments on Clayton in letter 16).  He writes:

It has also been declared of thee that thou canst not brook contradiction, and that to oppose thee in any of thy extravagancies, is to rouze thy implac­able vengeance … It hath likewise been asserted concerning thee, that thou affectest the clerical character, that thou assumest the sacerdotal stole, and that thou treatest with contempt thy poor brethren among the Dissenters, while with a relish peculiarly gratifying to thine own stomach thou lickest the greasy heels of dignitaries in the establishment; yea, I have heard it said that thou didst give credit to the assertions of a lying Bishop, while thou didst view with an eye of suspicion thine own people. (7)  

In words that would foreshadow Flower’s libel suit against Clayton in 1808, the Quaker declares, “I fear the fancied dignity of office, hath made thee insolent, not faithful; overbearing, but not conciliating; this is a spirit which hath been growing upon thee ever since the sun of prosperity cheared thy path, but a day of darkness may come, and the measure which thou hast meted to others may be measured to thee again” (11).  His final condemnation of Clayton’s actions toward the Rylands could easily be applied to Flower’s exper­ience as well:  “The testimonial which unasked thou hast given to the world concerning the religious characters of thy former friends, will always appear against thee as a proof, that malignity can lurk under a sacred profession, and that a spirit of revenge may be mistaken for godly sincerity” (11-12).  

   Clayton, however, was not without his supporters.  George Burder, the distinguished Independent minister at Fetter Lane and secretary of the London Missionary Society, in Lawful amusements; A sermon, preached at the Thursday lecture Fetter-Lane, January 10, 1805 (1805), offered a stern rebuke to any Christian who countenanced theatre-going, musicals, card-playing, and even novel reading.  Though he mentions no one by name in his sermon, the identities of the guilty parties (given the date of his sermon) were clear to all who were in attendance that day.  Burder argues, “When, therefore, we perceive a professing christian cleaving to the world, and imitating the people of it in appearance, mann­ers and diversions, we must conclude, either that such an one never enjoyed the pleasures of religion, or has lost them.  This conformity is always the symptom of a spiritual decline, and frequently the forerunner of a fatal apostacy” (35).  Burder was answered by an anonymous pamphlet, A letter to the Rev. George Burder, occasioned by his sermon on Lawful amusements; preached at the Thursday evening lecture, Fetter Lane, Jan. 10, 1805, published by Flower’s London friend, H. D. Symonds.  In a brilliant rebuttal of Burder’s puritanical position on the theatre, the writer distinguishes between the proper “use” of amusements and the improper “abuse” of them, a distinction Burder simply does not admit as part of a Christian’s life (31).  The writer also questions Burder’s motives in commenting on the theatre at this particular time, even suggesting that he has deliberately, though in a veiled manner, attacked Ryland publicly from the pulpit.  In an overt defense of Ryland, the writer argues: “ ... let not the man whose rectitude of mind and innocency of heart lead him to extract that rational amusement from the drama which it was designed to convey; let not this man be condemned as profane, or accounted as ungodly, because he happens to have been found among a British audience at a British theatre” (17).  He remarks that Burder, in his Preface to Lawful Amusements, had noted that the “the subject [of the sermon], at all times interesting, was rendered unusually so, from certain recent circumstances, and occasioned an uncommon attendance.” This prompts the writer to declare that for Burder

to affirm, from such a circumstance of such a man [Ryland], that he brings discredit on his profession of religion, is unworthy the candour of a true christian.  Let us not fancy ourselves clothed with holy zeal, merely  because the rigor of our principles is more conspicuous than the strength of our benevolence.  I mean these remarks as general: I am reasoning from human nature.  I detest, wherever I find it, the pride of the pharisee, and the zeal of the bigot.  Give me the man, that, while he is slow to condemn the faults of others, can shed the tears of repentance over his own. (17) 

   Burder responded with a second edition of his Lawful Amusements, to which he added an appendix; this produced a second response from the anonymous writer of the Letter, titled Postcript to the Letter to the Rev. G. Burder, occasioned by his appendix to his sermon on Lawful amusements, published by both Symonds and Conder.  Burder had accused the writer of being one of those who “endeavours to apologize for these nurseries of vice” (27), to which the writer admirably defended himself. Rowland Hill (1744-1833), minister for forty years at the Surry Chapel in London, also added his support to Clayton in A warning to professors, containing aphoristic observations on the nature and tendency of public amusements, a pamphlet promptly countered by D. W. Harvey, Esq, in his Letters occasioned by a pamphlet, recently published by Rowland Hill, M.A. entitled, “A warning to professors, containing aphoristic observations on the nature and tendency of public amusements;” with concise remarks on a late withdrawment from a dissenting Independent Church (1805).  Flower published another response to Hill in Harlow that same year, entitled A second warning to Christian professors: occasioned by some pass­ages in the first, containing injurious reflections on Protestant dissenters: in five letters to the Rev. Rowland Hill, A. M., signed “A Dissenting Brother.”  That same year Flower added further to the controversy with his publication of a translation of The stage: a sermon, by the Abbe M. Clement.

   The Ryland-Clayton controversy may have contributed to two other publications as well: a reprint of William Law’s 1726 sermon, The absolute unlawfulness of the stage entertainment.  Fully demonstrated. . .  To which are prefixed, extracts from several writers, on the subject of the stage ...  (undated, but edited by Flower’s Cambridge acquaintance, John Audley, and published in London, c.1808-09); and Four discourses on subjects relating to the amusement of stage: preached at Great St. Mary’s Church, Cambridge, on Sunday September 25, and Sunday October 2, 1808; with copious supplementary notes (1809) by the Rev. James Plumptre (1770-1832).  Plumptre, an acquaintance of Flower’s, had been a fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge, in 1808, and vicar at Great Gransden, Huntingtonshire, from 1812 to 1832.  He attempted to find a middle ground between Christianity and the theatre, which eventually led to his book, The English drama purified: being a specimen of select plays, in which all the passages that have appeared to the editor to be objectionable in point of morality, are omitted or altered (1812), followed that same year by his English drama purified with An inquiry into the lawfulness of the stage.  Taken principally from Four discourses on subjects relating to the stage ... and from the preface to The English drama purified (1812).  Thus ended a remarkable pamphlet war, one that originated with a simple request by one family for a dismissal letter from their church.

Text: Timothy Whelan, ed., Politics, Religion, and Romance: The Letters of Benjamin Flower and Eliza Gould, 1794-1808 (Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 2008), pp. 352-56 (a far more annotated text than that which appears on this site). 

[1]There was some truth to this statement.  An advertisement for the The Oracle, and the Daily Advertiser, which appeared at the end of Boyle’s City Guide for 1803, noted that the paper “may be received regularly every Morning ... at Breakfast Hours,” brimming with “the first sources of fashionable intelligence” deemed “necessary for the Amusement and Information of the nobility and gentry.”