Cleaver, Euseby (1745–1819), Church of Ireland archbishop of Dublin, was born in the rectory of Twyford, near Buckingham, England, son of the Rev. William Cleaver, the Twyford schoolmaster. He was admitted a king's scholar at Westminster School (1759) and subsequently as an undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford (1763). There he received his BA (1767), MA (1770), BD, and DD (both 1783). George Wyndham, 3rd earl of Egremont, presented Cleaver to the rectory of Spofforth, Yorkshire (1774–83), and later, to Petworth-cum-Tillington, Sussex (1783–7), where Egremont's seat, Petworth House, was located. Cleaver briefly became prebendary of Hova Villa in the church of Chicester (1787). Through the influence of his brother, the Rev. William Cleaver, tutor of George Grenville (qv), 3rd Earl Temple and marquis of Buckingham, and successively bishop of Chester, Bangor, and St Asaph, he came to Ireland as chaplain to the marquis, who was then lord lieutenant (1787).
One of the last clergymen to be appointed straight out of England to an Irish bishopric, Cleaver was consecrated bishop of Cork and Ross (1789). Surprisingly, Egremont kept the Petworth living open for him and made him head agent of the earl's large estates in Co. Clare and Co. Limerick. Cleaver translated to Ferns and Leighlin (1789–1809), where he was saddled with completing a stately episcopal palace begun by his predecessors. He published a sermon promoting English protestant schools in Ireland (1792), but is notable largely as a victim of the events of 1798. During the rebellion the palace at Ferns was plundered, its library destroyed and cellar drunk dry. Cleaver fled to Wales. Many of his servants were involved and the local catholic priest twice intervened to keep the rebels from razing the building. In the established church before the rebellion, the bishop had a reputation for grousing. His subsequent exaggerated claims for compensation, ecclesiastical and administrative politicking, and attempts to shift to the English bench did little to alter this. On the direction of the duke of Portland (qv), by now prime minister, he was finally made archbishop of Dublin in 1809. Two years later he was deemed mentally incompetent, and Charles Brodrick (qv), the archbishop of Cashel, was appointed coadjutor (27 August 1811), the only such appointment in the history of the Church of Ireland.
Cleaver married (2 May 1788), at St Michan's, Dublin, Catherine Wynne, daughter of Owen Wynne, MP, of Hazelwood, Co. Sligo. Mrs Cleaver was praised for her benevolence and at her death (1 May 1815) was found ‘as if recently engaged in prayer’ (Ryan, 479). Among their children, the Rev. William Cleaver was the father of the Rev. Euseby Digby Cleaver (qv), a noted Gaelic revivalist. A portrait of Archbishop Cleaver was painted and hung in the hall of Christ Church, Oxford. An engraving was also made (1818), intended for a projected history of Christ Church cathedral, and the proof engraving is in the Dominican friary in Tallaght. He died in December 1819 at Tunbridge Wells, Kent. His tomb is in Chester cathedral, along with that of his brother.