Born in Marylebone in 1827, John Richard Clayton was an important maker of stained glass in the latter half of the nineteenth century.
A contemporary and friend of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood with a passion for gothic architecture, Clayton began his artistic education at seventeen with an apprenticeship under the Belgium born sculptor Theodore Phyffers. Phyffers assisted Gothic Revival architects and designers Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin with sculptural decorations.
In the mid-1850s, whilst producing drawings for G. G. Scott, another Gothic Revival architect, Clayton was encouraged to work with Alfred Bell. The result was the formation of firm Clayton & Bell in 1855, which became a preeminent stained-glass manufacturers and church decorators in England.
While their work was primarily ecclesiastical, the firm also had secular clients and their operation grew so large that by the mid-1860s they employed three hundred employees in their Regent Street workshop.