Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/329

Bache chief work was a 'Commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew' in one book, which is bound up in the older editions of the works of St. Anselm. His other works are 'De officio Missæ Liber unus;' 'Sermonum Septuaginta liber unus;' 'Homiliarum Liber unus;' 'Comœdia carmine Liber unus;' 'Carminvim diversorum Liber unus.'

[Jöcher's Gelehrten-Lexicon; Pits, De Illustribus Angliæ Scriptoribus, p. 406; Bale's Scriptor. Brit. p. 467; Oudin, De Script. Eccles. iii. 799; Possevino's Apparatus Sacer. ii. 240; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hibern. p. 59; MS. Bibl. Bodl. Arch. B. 52; MS. Cotton. Titus A. xx. 30; Theoph. Raynaud. De malis ac bonis Libris, p. 126.]  BACHE, FRANCIS EDWARD (1833–1858), musician, born 14 Sept. 1833 at Birmingham, was the eldest son of [q.v.]. From a very early age he showed extraordinary talent for music, learning assiduously the piano, organ, and violin, in the last of which instruments he made such progress under the tuition of Alfred Mellon as to play in the orchestra of the Birmingham festivals of 1846 and 1847. Having determined to adopt music as his profession, he left school in the summer of 1849, and, after studying for a short time with Mr. James Stimpson, came to London, and continued his studies with Sir Sterndale Bennett. In Oct. 1850 he obtained the post of organist at All Saints Church, Gordon Square, and in November of the same year his first overture was performed at the Adelphi Theatre. From 1849 to 1853 he worked hard in London, teaching, studying, and composing numerous pianoforte pieces. In Oct. 1853 he went to Leipzig, Where he remained till the end of the following year, returning to England, after a short stay in Paris, in 1855. He obtained an appointment as organist at Hackney, but he was soon forced by illness to return home. In 1856 Bache went to Algiers, where for a time the consumptive symptoms from which he suffered were arrested. From Algiers he returned by way of Paris to Leipzig, spending the following winter in Rome. In June 1857 he returned home, and spent the next winter at Torquay, but on his return to Birmingham in April 1858 he gradually sank, dying on 24 Aug. of the same year. In estimating Bache's position as a composer, it cannot be denied that as far as regards his published works his promise was greater than his performance; of his unpublished works, which include two complete operas, a polonaise for pianoforte, orchestra, &c., there has been, unfortunately, no opportunity of judging the merits. But though much that he wrote was obviously the ephemeral and immature work of one whose powers were prevented by illness from attaining their full development, yet there are some of his compositions, notably amongst his songs, which show that he was possessed of genius of no mean order, and which will continue to occupy an honoured position amongst the best productions of English musicians.

[The Christian Reformer for December 1858; information from Miss Constance Bache.]  BACHE, SAMUEL (1804–1876), unitarian minister, was born on 24 Dec. 1804 at Bridgnorth, where his father, Joshua Tilt Bache (d. 28 Oct. 1837, aged 63), was a grocer. His mother was Margaret Silvester, of Newport, Salop. On her death, in 1808, he was entrusted to his father's sister", Mrs. Maurice, at Stourbridge, and he became the pupil of Rev. Ebenezer Beasley, a dissenting minister at Uxbridge. He was some time assistant in the school of the Rev. Lant Carpenter, LL.D., at Bristol, and was educated for the ministry (January 1826-29) at Manchester College, York, under Charles Wellbeloved (theology), John Kenrick, M.A. (classics), and William Turner, M.A. (science). He was minister at the Old Meeting, Dudley, 1829-32, and in 1832 became colleague of John Kentish (1768-1853) at the New Meeting, Birmingham (Priestley's congregation), and married Emily (d. 1855), second daughter of the Rev. Edward Higginson of Derby (1781-1832), whose eldest daughter, Helen (d. 1877), was the wife of the Rev. James Martineau. He had seven children, of whom F. E. Bache, the composer [see ], was the eldest; another is Walter Bache, the musician; the youngest son, John Kentish, some time a dissenting minister, took Anglican orders in 1876. For many years Mr. Bache kept a school. In 1859 he took a leading part with the Rev. Dr. Miller, rector of St. Martin's, in the establishment of Hospital Sunday, an institution originated in Birmingham. He was visitor of Manchester New College, London, 1861-65. In 1862 the New Meeting, Moor Street, was sold to Roman catholics, the congregation removing to a handsome structure in Broad Street, called the Church of the Messiah (foundation laid 11 Aug. 1860). Mr. Bache had as colleague in 1863-7 the Rev. Henry Enfield Dowson. In 1868 he resigned the ministry from failing health, and, being afflicted with softening of the brain, he resided for the last two years of his life in the house of a physician at Gloucester, where he died