Henry Layton

Henry Layton (1622–1705) was a minor British philosopher, theological writer, and contemporary of John Locke.

He was the eldest son of Francis Layton (died 23 August 1661, aged 84) of Rawdon, West Riding of Yorkshire. His father was one of the masters of the jewel-house to Charles I and Charles II. In accordance with his father's will, Layton built the chapel at Rawdon, a chapelry in the parish of Guiseley. He died at Rawdon on 18 October 1705, aged 83. By his wife Elizabeth (died 1702, aged 55), daughter of Sir Nicholas Yarborough, he left no issue.

Layton is remembered for his anonymous authorship of a series of pamphlets, printed between 1692 and 1704, on the question of the immortality of the soul, a doctrine which he rejected. He started writing on the topic in 1691 with short treatise of fifteen sheets, which was circulated in manuscript. A year's correspondence with a nearby minister ended in his being referred to Richard Bentley's second Boyle Lecture (4 April 1692). To this lecture Layton replied in his first published pamphlet. Bentley took no notice of it, but it was criticised five years later by a presbyterian divine, Timothy Manlove of Leeds. Another minister referred Layton to the Pneumatologia (1671) of John Flavel. Layton's original work had now grown to fifty pages. Ultimately he printed it at his own expense as A Search after Souls.

By 1697 he had impaired eyesight; Manlove's criticism, published in that year, was read to him by his amanuensis, Timothy Jackson, and he issued a reply. His pamphlets continued till the year before his death, restating his position that soul is a function of body, a view which he defends on physiological grounds, and harmonises with scripture. His authorship was little known. Caleb Fleming, who replied to his Search in 1758, thought it was the work of William Coward. Besides his printed tracts, Layton left theological manuscripts; his literary executor was his nephew, William Smith, rector of Melsonby, North Riding of Yorkshire.

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