Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bache, Samuel
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 Bache, Francis Edward], 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 on 7 Jan. 1876. He was a preaclier and public man of strong powers, correct attainment, and cultivated taste; formal and urbane in manner. Among unitarians he represented that conservative school which aims to carry out the principles of Locke's 'Reasonableness of Christianity,' regarding Jesus Christ as the miraculously attested exponent of a pure morality and a simple theology, and the revealer, by his resurrection, of an eternal life.
On 23 May 1866 he proposed the embodiment in the constitution of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association of a 'recognition of the special divine mission and authority, as a religious teacher, of Jesus Christ,' which was met by carrying the previous question. A list of twenty-two of his publications (1833-70) is given by J. Gordon, including 'Harmony of Science and Revelation,' 1839; 'Funeral Sermon for J. Kentish,' 1853; 'Exposition of Unitarian Views of Christianity,' 1854; 'Miracles the Credentials of the Christ,' 1863.
[Roll of Students Man. New Coll. 1868; Birm. Daily Gazette, 13 Jan. 1876; Funeral Sermon by John Gordon, 1876; Unitarian Chronicle, 1832; Report of E. and F. Unit. Ass. 1866; Beale's Memorials of Old Meeting Ho. Birm. 1882.]