William Robert Hay

William Robert Hay (1761–1839) was a British barrister, cleric and magistrate, one of the Manchester group associated with the Peterloo Massacre.

He was the son of Edward Hay, a diplomat and Governor of Barbados, and his wife Mary Flower, and grandson of George Hay, 8th Earl of Kinnoull. Born in Portugal, he was sent when young to England, and was brought up for some years by Archbishop Robert Hay Drummond, his uncle. He was on good terms with Robert, the archbishop's eldest son, and was sent to Westminster School with his older brother Thomas. He matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford in December 1776, six months after Thomas and at age 15, graduating B.A. 1780 and M.A. in 1783.

Hay entered the Inner Temple in 1781, and was called to the bar in 1788. He then went the northern circuit. He had little success as a barrister, but was employed by Sir John Parker Mosley, 1st Baronet as steward to the Manchester manorial court. He was elected to the membership of Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society on 26 April 1793.

Possibly influenced by Lewis Bagot, a connection by marriage, Hay was ordained deacon in 1797, priest in 1798, and was placed at Ashton-under-Lyne. He was assistant curate at Disley, in 1798. In 1799 he was curate at Hollinwood for Rev. John Darbey. He lived at Dukenfield Lodge, a property in his wife's family that was owned by Francis Dukinfield Astley.

In 1802 Charles Bragge, a family connection, presented Hay to the rectory of Ackworth, West Yorkshire. In 1806 William Markham gave him a prebend in York Minster.

Hay in May 1801 was one of the magistrates who dispersed a meeting near Saddleworth. It was not covert, having been advertised by handbills, despite the Seditious Meetings Act 1795, recently revived. Writing to William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland, the Home Secretary, Hay reported that the meeting had been peaceful, the magistrates had had no specific intelligence, and seditious intent would be hard to prove. Later that month, as part of the same campaign of 1800–1 to close down public expression of disaffection on the border between Lancashire and Yorkshire, Hay with another magistrate dispersed another meeting near Buckton. Hay's comment to the Home Office stated again that the meeting was peaceful and seditious intent would be hard to establish; but argued expediency.

In 1803 Hay was elected chairman of the quarter sessions for Salford Hundred, succeeding Thomas Butterworth Bayley, who had died in 1802; at this point he had been a justice of the peace in the West Riding of Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cheshire for some years. Salford Hundred, one of the four traditional divisions of Lancashire, was centred on Manchester. Bayley, Hay and Thomas Bancroft, vicar of Bolton, formed a discriminating group gathering local intelligence and showing scepticism to claims of their spies and informants, whom they recruited carefully. Their attitude differed from other, more credulous magistrates.

In 1812, at the time of the disorder at the Manchester Cotton Exchange and the reading of the Riot Act by two magistrates (Silvester and Wright), Hay found an ally in Charles Ethelston. They were like-minded.