Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gatliff, James
GATLIFF, JAMES (1766–1831), clergyman, the son of James Gatliff of Manchester, ‘chapman,’ was baptised at St. Anne's Church, Manchester, 20 Sept. 1766, and educated at the Manchester grammar school. After serving in the militia he took holy orders, and in 1802, through the influence of his brother John, who was a fellow of the Manchester Collegiate Church, obtained the stipendiary curacy of Gorton Chapel near Manchester, and subsequently the incumbency of St. Thomas's Chapel, Heaton Norris. In 1808 he succeeded to the perpetual curacy of Gorton. He published a new edition of William Wogan's ‘Essay on the Proper Lessons,’ with a memoir of the author, 4 vols., 1818, which involved him in pecuniary difficulties with his publisher, and led to his imprisonment for debt and the sequestration of his living. After his liberation he published a statement of his case with the strange title of ‘A Firm Attempt at Investigation; or the Twinkling Effects of a Falling Star to relieve the Cheshire Full-Moon’ (i.e. the bishop of Chester), Manchester, 1820, 8vo. For some years he eked out a livelihood by preaching in Scotland, and in 1826 he returned to Gorton. In the following year he published ‘Observations on the Life and Character of George Canning, delivered in a Discourse at Gorton Chapel.’ He died in April 1831, and was buried in the chancel of his chapel.
[Booker's Didsbury (Chetham Soc.), p. 190; J. F. Smith's Reg. Manchester Grammar School (Chetham Soc.), i. 164, ii. 284, iii. 343; Higson's Gorton, 1852, pp. 130 seq.]