Reverend John Clegg
(1836-1898)
27 January 1863

Volume 10, paged 46, sitting number 12,553.

Born at Heywood in Lancashire in or about 1836, John Clegg was the son of John Clegg of Butt Hill, Prestwich, Lancashire. Educated at Magdalene Hall, Oxford (BA, 1859; MA, 1861), he was ordained a deacon in 1860 and became a priest in 1862. His first post was as the Curate of Claines near Worcester (1861-1862); in 1862 he was preferred to the living of Toddington in Bedfordshire, which he held until 1876.

On 16 July 1863 at Stacksteads in Lancashire he married ‘Emma Jane, second daughter of Robert Munn, Esq., of Heath Hill, Stacksteads, Lancashire’ (Leeds Mercury, 20 July 1863). The previous year the bride’s brother James had married the groom’s sister Mary Elizabeth in Prestwich.

He appears on the 1871 census, aged 35, living at the Rectory in Toddington. Also present on the night of the census were his 6-year-old son, John Haworth Clegg, and three servants. He gave as his profession ‘Magistrate for County of Bedford and Rector of Toddington.’ His wife was elsewhere the night of the census.

Reverend John Clegg committed suicide on 4 May 1898. He was 62 years old. According to the Luton Times and Advertiser (20 May 1898), he hanged himself in the grounds of Horsley Hall, his residence in Staffordshire. ‘On the previous Wednesday, when Mrs and Miss Clegg were in London, the butler sounded the gong for dinner at 7 pm, but Mr Clegg did not come down. He then looked about the grounds and found the deceased suspended by a rope to the branch of a tree. Dr Gosse stated that Mr Clegg had grown feeble of late and suffered from gouty eczema. The jury returned a verdict of suicide while temporarily insane.’ A report and short obituary also appeared in the Leighton Buzzard Observer and Linslade Gazette (17 May 1898). ‘The Rev. John Clegg was intimately connected with our own neighbourhood a quarter of a century ago, being at that time rector of Toddington and a popular figure in the neighbourhood. […] Mr Clegg was Rector for a period of over ten years. He was a magistrate for the county, and often occupied a seat on the Woburn Bench. He had two children, a son and daughter; the son died some years ago, shortly after passing through Sandhurst. Much sympathy is felt in Toddington for the widow and daughter, the late Rector being held in high esteem on account of his courteous and kindly treatment of his parishioners during his sojourn here.’

He left an estate valued at £58,586.