MR CLAY having left the History of Milton in such a forward state as to be almost ready for press, the Cambridge Antiquarian Society thought it most desirable to print it. The Rev. W. G. Searle undertook the labour of seeing the
work through the press; and a common title has now been furnished for the Four Histories, which Mr Clay contributed to the Society’s publications. The following brief notice of the author furnishes the principal facts of his life.

The Rev. William Keatinge Clay was born in 1797, and having been ordained deacon in 1823 by the bishop of Salisbury, became curate of Greenwich; he was ordained priest in the following year by the bishop of London. He was curate of Paddington in 1830, and of Blunham Bedfordshire in 1834.

In 1835 he took the degree of B.D. at Jesus College as a ten-year man, became minor canon of Ely cathedral in 1837, and was appointed subsequently Prælector Theologicus and Librarian of the cathedral. In 1842 he was instituted to the perpetual curacy of Holy Trinity Ely, and was collated in
1854 by Dr Turton, bishop of Ely, to the vicarage of Waterbeach Cambridgeshire, where he died 26 April 1867.

He is the author of the following works:

Explanatory Notes on the Prayer-book Version of the Psalms. 8vo. London, 1839.
The Book of Common Prayer illustrated. 8vo. London, 1841.
A History of the Scotch, Irish, and American Prayer-books; an article in the British Magazine, 1846.
A Historical Sketch of the Prayer-book. 12mo. London, 1849.
A History of the Parish of Waterbeach. 8vo. Cambridge, 1859. pp. 148.
A History of the Parish of Landbeach. 8vo. Cambridge. 1861. pp. 126.
A History of the Parish of Horningsey (This is not a transcription error: throughout this book Clay consistently spells “Horningsea” as “Horningsey”.). 8vo. Cambridge, 1865. pp. 60.
These three histories were collected into one volume with a common title-page, as
Three Cambridgeshire Parishes, or a History of the adjoining Parishes of Waterbeach, Landbeach, and Horningsey. 8vo. Cambridge, 1865.
They were all published by the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, and form Nos. IV, VI, VII of the octavo series of their publications.
A History of the Parish of Milton. 8vo. Cambridge, 1869. pp. 108. This is the work now published.

He edited for the Parker Society,
Liturgies and occasional Forms of Prayer set forth in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. 8vo. Cambridge, 1847.
Private Prayers put forth by authority during the reign of Queen Elizabeth; with an Appendix. 8vo. Cambridge, 1851.

He also assisted in the edition of the Book of Common Prayer put out by the Ecclesiastical History Society in 1849-54, and in that of Wheatly’s Rationale of the Book of Common Prayer, reprinted in 1858 by the Syndics of the
University Press.

Cambridge,
  December, 1869.