CLIFFORD, JOHN (1836-1923), British Nonconformist minister and politician, son of a warp-machinist at Sawley, Derby shire, was born on Oct. 16, 1836. He worked in a lace factory where he attracted the notice of Baptists, who sent him to the academy at Leicester and the Baptist college at Nottingham to be educated for the ministry. In 1858 he was called to Praed Street chapel, Paddington (London), and while officiating there he at tended University college and pursued his education at the Brit ish Museum. He took his B.A. (1861), B.Sc. (1862), M.A. (1864), and LL.B. (1866), and in 1883 he was given an honorary D.D. by Bates college, U.S.A. At Praed Street chapel he obtained a large following, and in 1877 Westbourne Park chapel was opened for him. As a preacher, writer, propagandist, and ardent Liberal politician he became a power in the Nonconformist body. He was president of the London Baptist Association in 1879, of the Baptist Union in 1888 and 1899, and of the National Council of Evangelical Churches in 1898. His prominence in politics dates from 1903, in consequence of his advocacy of "passive re sistance" by non-payment of taxes to the Education Act of 1902. Into this movement he threw himself with militant ardour, his own goods being distrained upon, with those of numerous other Nonconformists. The "passive resistance" movement, with Dr. Clifford as its chief leader, contributed to the defeat of the Union ist Government in Jan. 1906, and his efforts were then directed to getting a new act passed which should be undenominational. The rejection of Mr. Birrell's bill in 1906 by the House of Lords led Dr. Clifford and his followers to denounce the House of Lords, but as year by year went by, up to 1909, with nothing but failure on the part of the Liberal ministry to solve the education problem —failure due not to the House of Lords but to the inherent dif ficulties of the subject—"passive resistance" lost its interest. Dr. Clifford received a C.H. in 1921, and died on Nov. 20, 1923.