Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol I (1901).djvu/208

 practical application of meteorological science was that for the use of storm signals, concerning which he had a protracted controversy with the board of trade. He foretold the long drought of 1868, and was serviceable to the Manchester corporation in enabling them to regulate the supply of water and so mitigate the inconvenience that ensued. On another occasion he predicted the outbreak of an epidemic at Southport.

His later years were passed at Birkdale, near Southport, where he died on 7 Oct. 1887. In religion he was a churchman and a staunch Anglo-Israelite.

He married, in 1865, Mary Anne, sister of [q. v.], the government astronomer for Madras, and left an only son, named after himself, who succeeded him as meteorologist to the corporation of Southport.



BAXTER, WILLIAM EDWARD (1825–1890), traveller and author, born on 24 June 1825 at Dundee, was the eldest son of Edward Baxter of Kincaldrum in Forfar, a Dundee merchant, by his first wife, Euphemia, daughter of William Wilson, a wool merchant of Dundee. Sir [q. v.] was his uncle. He was educated at the high school of Dundee and at Edinburgh University. On leaving the university he entered his father's counting-house, and some years afterwards became partner in the firm of Edward Baxter & Co. In 1870 that firm was dissolved, and he became senior partner of the new firm of W. E. Baxter & Co. He found time for much foreign travel and interested himself in politics. In March 1855 he was returned to parliament for the Montrose burghs in the liberal interest, in succession to [q. v.], retaining his seat until 1885. After refusing office several times he became secretary to the admiralty in December 1868, in Gladstone's first administration, and distinguished himself by his reforms and retrenchments. In 1871 he resigned this office, on becoming joint secretary of the treasury, a post which he resigned in August 1873, in consequence of differences between him and the chancellor of the exchequer, Robert Lowe. He was sworn of the privy council on 24 March 1873. Baxter continued to carry on business as a foreign merchant in Dundee till his death. He died on 10 Aug. 1890 at Kincaldrum.

In November 1847 he married Janet, eldest daughter of J. Home Scott, a solicitor of Dundee. By her he had two sons and five daughters.

Besides many lectures Baxter published:
 * 1) 'Impressions of Central and Southern Europe,' London, 1850, 8vo.
 * 2) 'The Tagus and the Tiber, or Notes of Travel in Portugal, Spain, and Italy, London, 1852, 2 vols. 8vo.
 * 3) 'America and the Americans,' London, 1855, 8vo.
 * 4) 'Hints to Thinkers, or Lectures for the Times,' London, 1860, 8vo.



BAYNE, PETER (1830–1896), journalist and author, second son of Charles John Bayne (d. 11 Oct. 1832), minister of Fodderty, Ross-shire, Scotland, and his wife Isabella Jane Duguid, was born at the manse, Fodderty, on 19 Oct. 1830. He was educated at Inverness academy, Aberdeen grammar school, Bellevue academy, and Marischal College, Aberdeen, where he took the degree of M.A. in 1850. While an undergraduate at Aberdeen he won the prize for an English poem, and in 1854 was awarded the Blackwell prize for a prose essay. From Aberdeen he proceeded to Edinburgh, and entered the theological classes at New College in preparation for the ministry. But bronchial weakness and asthma made preaching an impossibility, and he turned to journalistic and literary work as a profession. He began as early as 1850 to write for Edinburgh magazines, and in the years that followed much of his work appeared in Hogg's 'Weekly Magazine' and Tait's 'Edinburgh Magazine.' He was for a short time editor of the 'Glasgow Commonwealth,' and in 1806, on the death of his friend, [q. v.], whose life he wrote, succeeded him in Edinburgh as editor of the 'Witness.' A visit to Germany to acquire a knowledge of German led to his marriage in 1858 to Clotilda, daughter of General J. P. Gerwien. Up to this point his career had been uniformly successful, and his collected essays had brought him reputation not only in Scotland but in America also; but in 1860 he took up the post of editor of the 'Dial,' a weekly newspaper planned by the National Newspaper League Company on an ambitious scale in London. The 'Dial' proved a financial failure. Bayne not only struggled heroically to save the situation by editorial ability, but he lost all his own property in the venture, and burdened himself