Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol I (1901).djvu/163

 state, he opposed the state's direction of religious teaching. In 1867 he succeeded in securing the acceptance of this view by the conservative government. His interest in the subject of education had been recognised in his appointment in 1865 upon the schools inquiry commission.

Although an earnest free-trader, Baines was not a member of the Manchester school of non-intervention in foreign politics. Cobden had been re-elected for the West Riding in 1852, and on 17 Jan. 1855 addressed a meeting in the Cloth Hall yard at Leeds, vindicating his opposition to the war with Russia. An amendment in support of the policy of the government being moved was seconded by Baines in an effective speech which carried the large majority of his audience with him.

From November 1837 Baines had practised total abstinence. His 'Testimony and Appeal on the Effects of Total Abstinence' attained a circulation of 284,000 in 1853. Subsequently he published an 'Appeal to Christians on the National Vice of Intemperance' (1874), being an address at the inaugural meeting of the Congregational Total Abstinence Association.

On 30 April 1859 Baines was returned to the House of Commons for his native borough. One of his earliest speeches was delivered on 8 March 1860 as seconder of the address of thanks to the crown for the commercial treaty with France, which had been negotiated by Cobden. His activity in parliament was chiefly directed towards the reduction of the borough franchise from a 10l. to a 61. occupancy. He introduced bills with this object in the sessions of 1861, 1864, and 1865, but without success. He took a strong part in the various questions which at this period vitally interested nonconformists, such as the abolition of compulsory church rates (1868), the disestablishment of the church of Ireland (1869), and the abolition of university tests (1871). He continued to represent Leeds until the general election of 1874, when he was defeated. On his retirement from parliament he received from Gladstone a letter bearing testimony to 'the single-minded devotion, courage of purpose, perfect integrity, and ability ' with which he had discharged his duties.

Baines now devoted himself to literature and public work. In 1875 he contributed a history of the woollen trade of Yorkshire to a work on that county, entitled 'Yorkshire Past and Present,' published in four volumes by his brother, Thomas Baines (1871-1877) [q. v.] This was an amplification of a paper originally read by him as president of the economic section of the British Association held at Leeds in 1858, 'on the woollen manufacture of England with special reference to the Leeds clothing district.' The paper was published in March 1859 by the London Statistical Society. In the spring of 1880 he was elected chairman of the Yorkshire College at Leeds, an office he filled for seven years. In the following November he received knighthood. A public presentation was made to him in the Albert Hall, Leeds, on the completion of his eightieth year. He maintained his consistent liberalism in matters of public policy and supported Mr. Gladstone's home-rule bill for Ireland in 1886. He died on Sunday, 2 March 1890, at his house, St. Ann's Hill, Burley.

Baines married in 1829 Martha, only daughter of Thomas Blackburn of Liverpool, by whom he had three sons and four daughters. Lady Baines died in 1881. In addition to the literary works already mentioned Baines contributed to the 'Leeds Mercury' of 5 and 12 Aug. 1848 a life of his father, which was separately published in the same year.

Two portraits of him in oil are in the possession of the corporation of Leeds, the one painted in 1874 by Richard Waller, the other in 1884 by Walter Ouless. An engraved portrait from a photograph is in vol. i. of his brother's 'Yorkshire.'  BAKER, SAMUEL WHITE (1821–1893), traveller and sportsman, born in London on 8 June 1821, was the second son of Samuel Baker of Lypiatt Park, Gloucestershire, by Mary, daughter of Thomas Dobson of Enfield. His father was a West India merchant, possessing considerable property in Jamaica and Mauritius, and his grandfather, Captain Valentine Baker of Bristol, won fame by nearly capturing with his privateer sloop the Caesar, a French frigate of 32 guns, on 27 June 1782. Valentine Baker [q. v. Suppl.] was his younger brother. The early years of Sir Samuel's life were spent at Enfield, and after 1833 in Gloucestershire, where his father for a time rented Highnam Court from Sir John Guise. He was educated first at a private school at Rottingdean, between 1833 and 1835 at the College school, Gloucester, and subsequently, in 1838, by a private tutor, Henry Peter Dunster, at Tottenham. This somewhat desultory course of education was completed in 1841 at Frankfort, where he attended lectures and learned German. Early in life he was interested in natural history and geography, and exhibited a remarkable power