Joseph Clayton (1868-1943) was an English freelance journalist and biographer. A writer of numerous books, he covered areas of trade union and socialist history, but also religious figures and history.
He was a Christian Socialist as an undergraduate at the University of Oxford. He became an organiser of the Independent Labour Party, and supported socialist causes. In 1896 he was an ILP member in Leeds.
He edited The New Age in 1907, successor to Arthur Compton-Rickett, before it was sold to a group backing A. R. Orage and Holbrook Jackson; Clayton knew Orage from the ILP. He was a convert to Catholicism in 1910. He was a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
Father Dolling (1902) on Robert William Radclyffe DollingGrace Marlow (1903) novelJohn Blankset's Business (1904) novelBishop Westcott (1906)The Bishops as Legislators (1906)The Truth about the Lords: our new nobility, 1857-1907 (1907)Robert Owen, Pioneer of Social Reforms (1908)Wat Tyler and the Peasant Revolt (1909)The True Story of Jack Cade (1910)Leaders of the People: studies in democratic history (1910)The Rise of the Democracy (1911)Robert Kett and the Norfolk Rising (1912)Co-operation and the Trade Unions (1912)Father Stanton of St Albans, Holborn (1913)Trade Unions (1913)Economics For Christians (1924)The Historic Basis of Anglicanism: A short survey of the foundations of the Anglican Communion (1925)The Rise and Decline of Socialism in Great Britain 1884-1924 (1926)Continuity in the Church Of England (1928)St Hugh of Lincoln (1931)Sir Thomas More. A Short Study (1933)The Protestant Reformation in Great Britain (1934)