Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 03.djvu/453

Baylies in ejecting such that were then (1645 and after) called ignorant and scandalous ministers and schoolmasters.' On being turned out of his living at the Restoration, he set up a conventicle at Marlborough, where he died and was buried in the church of St. Peter on 27 March 1663. He published: 'Thomae Baylaeei Maningfordiensis Ecclesise Pastoris de Merito Mortis Christi, et Modo Conversionis, diatribae duee, provt ab ipso in schola theologica apud Oxonienses publice ad disputandum propositae fuerunt, Maij 8. An. Dom. 1621. Nec non Concio ejusdem ad Clerum apud eosdem habita in templo Beatae Mariae, Iulij 5 An. D. 1622,' Oxford, 1626, 4to, dedicated to Sir Thomas Coventry, keeper of the great seal.

[Wood's Athenae Oxon. (ed. Bliss), iii. 633; Palmer's Nonconformists' Memorial, iii. 367; Cat. Librorum Impress. Bibl. Bodleianae, i. 206; Hetherington's Hist, of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, 110.]  BAYLIES, WILLIAM (1724–1787), physician, born in 1724, was a native of Worcestershire, and practised for some years as an apothecary. After marrying the daughter of Thomas Cooke, a wealthy attorney of Evesham, he began the study of medicine, obtained the degree of M.D. at Aberdeen on 18 Dec. 1748, and was elected a fellow of the Edinburgh College of Physicians on 7 Aug. 1757. He practised for many years at Bath, and published in 1757 ‘Reflections on the Use and Abuse of Bath Waters,’ which involved him in a dispute with Dr. Lucas and Dr. Oliver, the two chief doctors of the city. He issued a pamphlet concerning this quarrel—‘A Narrative of Facts demonstrating the existence and course of a physical confederacy, made known in the printed letters of Dr. Lucas and Dr. Oliver,’ 1757. But the controversy ruined Baylies's practice, and he removed to London, and on 8 Nov. 1764 was appointed physician to the Middlesex Hospital. He unsuccessfully contested the representation of Evesham in parliament in 1761, and petitioned against the return of one of his rivals, but withdrew the petition before the day of hearing (15 Dec.) He became licentiate of the College of Physicians in London on 30 Sept. 1765, and made himself notorious by the magnificent entertainments he repeatedly gave at his house in Great George Street, Westminster. Pecuniary difficulties forced him to leave England for Germany. He first settled at Dresden, and afterwards at Berlin, where he obtained the post of physician to Frederick the Great. It is said that the King of Prussia at an early interview with Baylies remarked to him that ‘to have acquired such skill he must have killed a great many people,’ and that the doctor replied, ‘Pas tant que votre Majesté.’ Baylies died at Berlin on 2 March 1789, and left his library to the King of Prussia. A portrait of him by H. Schmid, engraved by D. Berger, was published at Berlin. Baylies was the author of the following works (besides those already mentioned): 1. ‘Remarks on Perry's Analysis of the Stratford Mineral Water,’ Stratford-on-Avon, 1745. 2. ‘A History of the General Hospital at Bath,’ London, 1758. 3. ‘Facts and Observations relative to Inoculation at Berlin,’ Edinburgh, 1781, of which a French translation was previously issued at Dresden in 1776.

[Munk's College of Physicians, ii. 271–2; Gent. Mag. 1787, pt. ii. 857; Watt's Bibl. Brit.]  BAYLIS, EDWARD (1791–1861), mathematician and founder of insurance companies, commenced life as a clerk in the Alliance Insurance Office. He founded a series of life offices between the years 1838 and 1854 (the Victoria, 1838, the English and Scottish Law, 1839, the Anchor, 1842, the Candidate, 1843, the Professional, 1847, the Trafalgar, 1851, the Waterloo, 1852, the British Nation, 1854), in many of which he acted as manager and actuary. In all he expected to realise results which increasing competition made impossible; shareholders and policyholders were promised extravagant advantages which they never enjoyed. As a consequence, all Baylis's offices disappeared except one—the English and Scottish Law—which still survives. Baylis wrote (in 1844) a skilful book on the ‘Arithmetic of Annuities and Life Assurance,’ adapted more particularly to students. He died in 1861, aged 70, at the Cape of Good Hope, where he had settled in his old age.

[C. Walford's Insurance Cyclopædia.]  BAYLIS, THOMAS HUTCHINSON (1823–1876), promoter of insurance offices, was the son of Edward Baylis [q. v.], and began life as a clerk in the Anchor, one of his father's insurance companies. In 1850 he became manager of the Trafalgar Office, also founded by his father. About 1852 he founded the Unity General Life Insurance Office and the Unity Bank. He exhibited a great deal of tact in the establishment of these companies, but he was speedily in disagreement with his colleagues in the management, and in October 1856 retired from the control. He then emigrated to Australia, and endeavoured to organise some insurance companies there, but, achieving no success, he returned to England in 1857, and founded and became