John Ley

John Henry Ley (1770 – 21 August 1850), was an English civil servant who served as Clerk of the House of Commons from 1820 to 1850.

Early life He was a son of Henry Ley (1744–1824) and Mary ( Smith) Ley (1748–1834), a daughter of Capt. Smith of the Royal Navy. His sister, Mary Ley, married John Greathed Harris, FRS, and his younger brother, William Ley of Woodlands, was Assistant Clerk of the House of Commons from 1820 to 1856. Frances' sister, Penelope Hatsell, was the wife of the Hon. Rev. Littleton Powys (the second surviving son of Thomas Powys, 1st Baron Lilford and younger brother to Thomas Powys, 2nd Baron Lilford); and grandmother of Arthur Powys-Vaughan.

His paternal grandparents were John Ley and Grace ( Grandy) Ley (a daughter of Henry Grandy, of Exeter). His family had been settled in Kenn for several generations and were "sprung from a common ancestor with the Leys, formerly Earls of Marlborough."

Ley was educated as a King's Scholar at Westminster School, before being elected a Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge, but "being desirous of going to Christ Church, with his contemporaries, the Westminster Students, he was entered as a Commoner of that College; he was soon after presented to a Studentship by Dr. Shafto, one of the Canons." Hatsell and Ley divided the large income accruing to the clerks from the passage of private bills through Parliament. Around 1811, however, his uncle had a falling out with Hatsell over clerical appointments. Following Ley's death in 1814, his uncle's position was taken by Jeremiah Dyson the younger. Background to the quarrel was resistance to the Ley family influence, in which Charles Abbot—Speaker from 1802 to 1817—sided with Hatsell. Ley's residence next to the Commons chamber in St Stephen's Chapel was among the parts of the old Palace of Westminster that was destroyed by fire in October 1834. He served in the role until his death in 1850, after which he was succeeded by Sir Denis Le Marchant, 1st Baronet. At the time of his death, however, the clerk assistant was his brother William and the second clerk assistant was his son Henry. When not in London, they lived at the Ley family seat, Trehill House in Kenn, Devon, and were the parents of five sons and one surviving daughter, including: Frances Dorothy Ley (d. 1885), who married the Rev. Villiers Henry Plantagenet Somerset, son of Gen. Lord Charles Somerset (second son of Henry Somerset, 5th Duke of Beaufort) and Hon. Elizabeth Courtenay (a daughter of William Courtenay, 2nd Viscount Courtenay), in 1844. His widow died on 12 October 1875.

Descendants Through his daughter Frances, he was a grandfather of two granddaughters; Frances Dorothea Charlotte Somerset (d. 1894) and Mary Isabella Frances Somerset (d. 1929), neither of whom married; and two grandsons; the Rev. Henry Plantagenet Somerset (1845–1926), Rector and Rural Dean at Crickhowell, and John Henry William Somerset (1848–1928). who married Mary Coats Chamley (a daughter of Matthew Chamley of Warcop House, Westmorland).