James Clay (20 December 1804, London – 26 December 1873, Brighton) was an English politician and writer on the game of whist. His son was the musical composer Frederic Clay.
Clay was MP for Hull from July 1847 until 1853, when he was unseated after a bribery inquiry. He regained the seat at an 1857 by-election and held it until his death.
According to an obituary in the Westminster papers: a monthly journal of chess, whist, games of skill and the drama Clay had been "the acknowledged head of the Whist world" for the last thirty years before his death, spending much of his time and attention on whist and piquet. In 1863 he became chairman of a committee for settling the laws of whist.
Famous quotes containing the words james and/or clay:
“The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“I am sure my bones would not rest in an English grave, or my clay mix with the earth of that country. I believe the thought would drive me mad on my death-bed could I suppose that any of my friends would be base enough to convey my carcass back to her soil. I would not even feed her worms if I could help it.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)