John Clayton (town Clerk) - Early Life and Career

Early Life and Career

John Clayton lived most of his life in the public eye. Son of Nathaniel Clayton (Town Clerk of Newcastle upon Tyne from 1785 to 1822), he was educated at Kirkoswald School in Northumberland and received classical education at Uppingham. He began work in the firm of solicitors that had been established by his father Nathaniel in the Bigg Market in 1778, and which became Clayton and Dunn, and qualified as an attorney in 1815. John become Under-Sheriff in 1816 before succeeding his father as Town Clerk 1822, remaining in post until 1867. He never married, but shared the family's townhouse in Fenkle Street, Newcastle, with his unmarried brother and legal partner, Matthew.

As well as his work in the city, Clayton was a keen antiquarian, and his dedication to Hadrian's Wall proved invaluable to its later preservation. He was born 10 June 1792. Four years later, his father purchased the Chesters Estate, through which Hadrian's Wall runs, and which contained the site of Chesters fort.

While landscaping a parkland setting for his home, The Chesters, Nathaniel Clayton levelled out and grassed over much of the Roman fort. While doing so he collected various antiquities, but there is no evidence that he took a great deal of interest in the Roman history of his estate. However, from an early age John took a passionate interest not only in the fort of Chesters and its immediate surroundings, but in Roman remains in the nearby countryside.

From 1834 he began buying land to preserve the Wall, at a time when what is now a World Heritage Site was little understood and being unthinkingly vandalised by quarrying and removal of stones for reuse. He even had some restoration work carried out on parts of the Wall.

Clayton’s enthusiasm helped preserve that central stretch of Hadrian’s Wall that includes Chesters (Cilurnum). Housesteads and Vindolanda. He carried out some of the first archaeological excavations on the Wall. His first published work, in 1843, was his excavation of the commanding officer's bath-house at Chesters. He was involved in excavations most years for the next half-century, both at Chesters and elsewhere along Hadrian's Wall, namely Cawfields (Milecastle 42), Castle Nick (mc 39) and Housesteads Crags (mc 37), Housesteads and Carvoran. His archaeological work continued into his later years, and he was in his early nineties when he uncovered the spectacular sculptures of the temple to Mars Thincsus at Housesteads.

Clayton also brought early tourism to the Hadrian's Wall area and is to be thanked for establishing Chesters as an archaeological site open to visitors. A small garden pavilion on the estate was used to display his archaeological collection as well as other 'casual finds' and purchased acquisitions at Chesters for visiting friends and enthusiasts. Following his death in 1890, his nephew Nathaniel commissioned and had built a permanent museum which was completed in 1896 to house the Clayton Collection.

It is privately owned but curated by English Heritage on behalf of the collection’s trustees and has now been refurbished to bring it up to 21st-century standards of conservation, display and interpretation. However, great care has been taken to respect its character and to retain the feel of a 19th-century gentleman antiquarian’s collection.