Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bayley, Henry Vincent
BAYLEY, HENRY VINCENT, D.D. (1777–1844), divine, was the seventh son of Thomas Butterworth Bayley, of Hope Hall, near Manchester [q. v.], where he was born 6 Dec. 1777. His mother was Mary, only child of Mr. Vincent Leggatt. Bayley was educated at the grammar school of Winwick in Lancashire, and at Eton, which he entered in May 1789, and left 9 Dec. 1795. At Eton he was the associate of Sir William Pepys, Hallam, W. Frere, W. Herbert, and others, who were known as the literati; and he contributed to the 'Musæ Etonenses.' He commenced his residence at Trinity College, Cambridge, in April 1796. In February 1798 he obtained a university scholarship. In April he was elected a scholar of Trinity College. He took his B.A. degree in 1800, and won the bachelor's prizes in 1801 and 1802. Porson pronounced him the first Greek scholar of his standing in England, and in 1802 he was elected a fellow of his college. In 1803 he was ordained by Bishop Majendie of Chester, who appointed him his chaplain. On 25 Sept. 1803 he published 'A Sermon preached at an Ordination held in the Cathedral Church of Chester,' 8vo, Manchester, 1803. This is the only printed sermon of the author in existence. Not long afterwards he accepted the tutorship of Bishop Tomline's eldest son, and was presently appointed examining chaplain to the bishop, by whom he was preferred successively to the rectory of Stilton, in Huntingdonshire, and to the sub-deanery of Lincoln, vacant by the death of Paley in May 1805. He effected improvements in the minster, desired to throw open the minster 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.]