Benjamin Clayton—III, Engraver

(b. 1809, d. 1883)

Engraver

From A Dictionary of Irish Artists 1913

Was the eldest of the three sons of Benjamin Clayton (II), and his wife Eleanor Creathorne, and was born on 6th January, 1809. He worked at first as an engraver with his father and afterwards practised as a miniature painter, exhibiting in the Royal Hibernian Academy from 1834 to 1841. In July of the latter year he left Dublin and settled in London, where he obtained employment on the illustrated papers, and wrote and illustrated guide books, children's books, and even started weekly papers of his own. He obtained some success by his military drawings. A series of twelve large plates of "Costumes of the Grenadier Guards, from 1660 to 1853," were published by Ackermann in 1853-4. He was one of the founders of the Savage Club and an enthusiastic Volunteer. He died of chronic rheumatism and bronchitis on 11th August, 1883, and was buried at Nunhead. Clayton married in 1833 Mary Graham, daughter of a bookseller in Capel Street. By her, who died in 1877, he was the father of Eleanor Creathorne Clayton (q.v.), and of Albert Victor and Herbert Benjamin Clayton, engravers, who still survive.

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