William Hayley ca.1658-1715

William HAYLEY ca.1658-1715

Biographical Note

Son of William Hayley of Cleobury Mortimer, Shropshire. Matriculated Balliol College, Oxford 1673 before BA All Souls' 1676, MA 1680, BD, DD 1695. While at All Souls' he was also variously a chorister, clerk and fellow. Chaplain to Sir William Trumbull. Rector of St-Giles-in-the-Fields from 1695 and dean of Chichester from 1699, he held both positions until his death.

Books

Hayley's library was sold by retail sale in London beginning 6 March 1723. Advertisements in the Post Boy and other newspapers described the sale as 'in Greek, Latin, English, French, and Italia; consisting of a very curious Collection of Books, relating to the History and Antiquities of Great Britain, &c. Architecture, Husbandry, Trade, Voyages, Poetry, and Lives of the most eminent Persons: Also a very large Collection of Greek and Latin Fathers, Historians, Lexicographers... many of the Classicks... and a good Collection of Books in Physick and Surgery'. While Hayley's will made no mention of his own books, appended to it is a transcription of his deceased wife's wishes upon her death, in which she states 'I have in the study a Bible which was my Grandmother Meres's Mothers which I should like Nanny had and Tommy Sanderson's Sermons which were my Grandmother Delafontaine's'. Hayley's wife was a daughter of Sir Thomas Meres, and they married in 1696.

Sources

• CCEd Clergy of the Church of England Database.
• Will of William Hayley, Doctor in Divinity Dean of Chichester, The National Archives PROB 11/549/181.
• A catalogue of the library of the Reverend and learned William Hayley, D.D. late Dean of Chichester, deceased, [London, 1723], ESTC T28751.
• 'A Catalogue of the Library of the Reverend and Learned William Hayley...', Post Boy, 28 February 1723.
• Alston, R. C. Inventory of sale catalogues ... 1676-1800, St Philip, 2010.
• Foster, J. Alumni Oxonienses, Oxford, 1891.