Joseph Clayton FRHistS (1867–1943) was an English freelance journalist and biographer.

He was a Christian socialist as an undergraduate at Worcester College, Oxford, where he was a classmate of Richard Runciman Terry.

He became an organiser of the Independent Labour Party (ILP), and supported socialist causes.

[3] He edited The New Age in 1907, successor to Arthur Compton-Rickett,[4] before it was sold to a group backing A. R. Orage and Holbrook Jackson;[5] Clayton knew Orage from the ILP.

[7] Clayton was a contributor to the National Review, The Athenaeum, The Universe, The Bookman, and the Catholic Encyclopedia.