Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 03.djvu/449

Bayley library to the public, and took an active share in the establishment of a public library in Lincoln. In 1810 he was presented to the united vicarages of Messingham and Bottesford, where he renovated the parish church, chiefly at his own expense; and in 1812 to the valuable vicarage of Great Carlton, near Louth, which he rarely visited, although he retained the benefice till his death. Later he was preferred to the archdeaconry of Stow with the prebend of Liddington (29 Sept. 1823); to the rectory of Westmeon with Privet, in Hampshire (1826); and to the twelfth stall in Westminster Abbey (1828), when he resigned his subdeanery and canonry at Lincoln. In 1824 Bayley proceeded to his degree of D.D. at Cambridge. In May 1826 he delivered a charge to the clergy of the archdeaconry of Stow, which was ‘printed for the author’ at Gainsborough in 1826 for private circulation, was reprinted in the following year, and is attached to the ‘Memoir of Henry Vincent Bayley, D.D.,’ which was ‘printed for private circulation’ in 1846. In 1827 he declined to stand for the regius professorship of divinity at Cambridge, owing probably to his growing infirmities. His last days were passed chiefly at Westmeon, his Hampshire rectory. He repaired the church of the hamlet of Privet, and the rebuilding of the church of Westmeon was commenced 9 Aug. 1843. In this year he became unable to write or read, and abandoned schemes for a new edition of Secker's ‘Eight Charges,’ and for a selection from the old and new versions of the Psalms of David. When blind he recited the prayers from memory. He died 12 Aug. 1844. He was buried in the same vault with his wife, who had died at Westmeon 17 June 1839, and the new church was consecrated by the Bishop of Winchester on 5 May 1846.

[Musæ Etonenses, London, 1795; Gent. Mag. August 1802, and September 1844; Le Neve's Fasti, ed. Hardy; Saturday Magazine, 23 Nov. 1833; Lincolnshire Chronicle, 23 Aug. 1844; Hampshire Chronicle, 9 May 1846; and a Memoir of Henry Vincent Bayley, D.D., 1846.]  BAYLEY, JOHN (1763–1841), judge, was the second son of John Bayley and Sarah his wife, the granddaughter of Dr. White Kennet, bishop of Peterborough. He was born at Elton, Huntingdonshire, on 3 Aug. 1763, and educated at Eton. Though nominated for King's College, Cambridge, he did not go up to the university, and was admitted to Gray's Inn on 12 Nov. 1783. After practising some time as a special pleader, he was called to the bar on 22 June 1792, and went the home circuit. In 1799 he became a serjeant-at-law, and was for some time recorder of Maidstone. In May 1808 he was made a judge of the King's Bench, in the place of Sir Soulden Lawrence, and was knighted on the 11th of the same month. After sitting in this court for more than twenty-two years, he was at his own request removed to the court of Exchequer in November 1830. He resigned his seat on the bench in February 1834, and in the following month was created a baronet and admitted to the privy council. By his quickness of apprehension, his legal knowledge, and his strict impartiality, Sir John Bayley was peculiarly adapted for judicial office. The ease and pleasure with which he got through his work caused M. Cotte, the French advocate, to exclaim, ‘Il s'amuse à juger.’ The most memorable case which came before Sir John in his judicial capacity was the action for libel brought in 1819 by the attorney-general against Richard Carlile for the republication of Thomas Paine's ‘Age of Reason’ and Palmer's ‘Principles of Nature.’ He died, aged 78, at the Vine House near Sevenoaks, on 10 Oct. 1841. By his wife Elizabeth, the daughter of John Markett of Meopham Court Lodge, co. Kent, he had three sons and three daughters. The present baronet, the Rev. Sir John Laurie Emilius Bayley, is his grandson.

Sir John wrote the following books: 1. ‘A Short Treatise on the Law of Bills of Exchange, Cash Bills, and Promissory Notes,’ 1789, 8vo. 2. ‘Lord Raymond's Reports and Entries in the King's Bench and Common Pleas in the Reigns of William, Anne, George I and II,’ 4th edition, 1790, 8vo. 3. ‘The Book of Common Prayer, with Notes on the Epistles,’ 1813, 8vo. 4. ‘The Prophecies of Christ and Christian Times, selected from the Old and New Testament, and arranged according to the periods in which they were pronounced,’ by a Layman, edited by Rev. H. Clissold, 1828, 8vo.

[Foss's Judges of England (1864), ix. 75–8; Georgian Era, ii. 549; Gent. Mag. 1841, xvi. N.S., 652–3; Annual Register, 1841, p. 225; Notes and Queries, 3rd series, i. 474.]  BAYLEY, JOHN [WHITCOMB] (d. 1869), antiquary, second son of John Bayley, a farmer, of Hempstead, Gloucestershire, became at an early age a junior clerk in the Tower Record Office. In or about 1819 he was appointed chief clerk, and afterwards a sub-commissioner on the Public Records. In the latter capacity he edited ‘Calendars of the Proceedings in Chancery in the Reign of