Joseph Radcliffe

Joseph Radcliffe, (1726-1804) was the husband of the English Feminist and Memoirist Mary Ann Radcliffe and the cause for her writings warning other young women of the evils of ill considered marriage.
Joseph Radcliffe was born in Coxwold, Yorkshire in 1726 and was the only surviving child of his parents, Joseph and Mary Radcliffe. His parents are listed in the recusant returns for 1736 as being farmers of Coxwold. In the Memoirs of Mary Ann Radcliffe, it is claimed that the family were related to the Earls of Derwentwater, however this claim is tenuous, and the Radcliffes of Coxwold are descended from the Radcliffe family of [], who were only distantly related to the Derwentwater family.
Radcliffe eloped with the heiress Mary Ann Clayton who was 20 years his junior in 1762. Initially married by a Catholic priest in secret, Clayton's guardians forced them to remarry in St Nicholas' Church in Nottingham on the 2nd May 1762 so that the marriage would be formally recognized. Mary Ann Radcliffe's misfortunes in life were traced by her to this marriage and her books were written as warnings to other young women who may have been tempted by love to abandon caution.
After high living in which the majority of his wife's inheritance was spent Radcliffe engaged in a number of unsuccessful business ventures which led to the couple finally separating and living separate lives. Mary Ann Radcliffe went on to write her feminist didactic, The Female Advocate, a plea for the rights of women to enjoy better employment opportunities, after experiencing the difficulties of this time. Joseph Radcliffe chose to remain estranged from his wife after her renunciation of Catholicism in the 1780s. Mary Ann Radcliffe's writings were, in her own words, to warn other young women of the follies inherent in youthful indiscretions.
William Radcliffe the Rouge Croix Pursuivant wrote of him, "Joseph Radclyffe of Coxwold, born in 1726, married the heiress of James Clayton of Nottingham. “Having some little fortune of his own, which was improved by that of his wife, he soon after his marriage kept a house in Grosvenor Square, with a coach and four, and kept it up as the means lasted. His widow, a clever sensible woman, kept a ready-made shoe shop, in about 1795, in Oxford Street, and is now (1810) in Edinburgh, on the bounty, I believe, of some old female acquaintance"
Joseph Radcliffe became the house steward to Sir John Stanley, 6th Baronet at Aldersley Park in Cheshire, a post he remained in until his death in 1804.

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