Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/451

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Baines
439
Baines

lition of church rates and of civil disabilities, and gave an independent but hearty support to the Corn Law League. He was a good speaker, and enjoyed much personal influence and even popularity. His retirement from parliament was signalised by the presentation of a testimonial in recognition of his services. He died 3 Aug. 1848, a public funeral being accorded to him.

Baines is recollected as a benevolent, just, and liberal-minded man. He made an excellent local magistrate. He was married in 1798 to Charlotte, daughter of Matthew Talbot, currier, of Leeds, by whom he had eleven children. Of these more than one attained distinction.

Besides the works already mentioned, Baines wrote a 'History of the Wars of the French Revolution from 1792 to 1816: comprehending the civil history of Great Britain and France during that period,' 2 vols. (1818), which was afterwards extended, and became a 'History of the Reign of George III,' in 4 vols. 4to (1823).

[Life, by his Son; Leeds Mercury, 5 and 12 Aug. 1848; Manchester Guardian, August 1848; Timperley's Encyclopædia of Printing, p. 949.]


BAINES, JOHN (1787–1838), mathematician, was born at Westfield farmhouse in the parish of Horbury, Yorkshire, in 1787. From his boyhood he gave proofs of a strong mathematical bias, and in his latter years was a well-known correspondent of the 'Ladies' Diary,' the 'Gentleman's Diary,' the 'York Miscellany,' and other similar periodicals, which in those days were noted for their geometrical and algebraic problems. He died at Thornhill, near Wakefield, Yorkshire, on 1 May 1838, where for nine years he had been master of the grammar school.

Besides many mathematical contributions to the above-named periodicals, nearly all of which evince considerable talent, we find on p. 24 of the 'Ladies' Diary' for 1833 an article of Baines on Cuvier's 'Theory of the Earth,' written to prove that it is a confirmation of the Mosaic account. From the Latin inscription on his tombstone in Horbury churchyard he appears to have been also skilled in Latin, Greek, and natural science, especially botany, 'in herbis decernendis peritus.'

[Private information; Gentleman's Diary for 1835, pp. 33-46, 1836, p. 48, 1837, &c., and previous volumes; Ladies' Diary for 1833, p. 24, 1836, p. 35, 1837, pp. 15-47.]


BAINES, MATTHEW TALBOT (1799–1860), politician, was the eldest son of Edward Baines, of Leeds, author of the 'History of Lancashire,' and was born 17 Feb. 1799. He obtained a scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge, and graduated in 1820 as a senior optime. lie was called to the bar in 1825, and, after practising with success on the northern circuit, was, in 1837, appointed recorder of Hull, and in 1841 became a queen's counsel. In 1847 he entered parliament as member for Hull, which he continued to represent until 1852, when he was chosen for Leeds. Under Lord Russell's administration he became, in 1849, president of the poor-law board, and he held the same appointment in Lord Aberdeen's ministry. After Lord Palmerston acceded to power m 1855, he was appointed chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, with a seat in the cabinet. Though not a brilliant debater, his solid talents won for him high consideration, and his firmness, impartiality, and special knowledge of the forms of the house pointed him out as a probable occupant of the speaker's chair, had not ill health caused his retirement from public life in April 1859. He died 22 Jan. 1860.

[Gent. Mag., 3rd series, viii. 302; Annual Register, cii. 386.]

BAINES, PAUL. [See Baynes.]


BAINES, PETER AUGUSTINE, D.D. (1786–1843), catholic bishop, was born on 25 June 1786, at Pear Tree Farm, within the township of Kirkby, near Liverpool, in Lancashire. In 1798 Peter Baines, in company with three brothers named John, Edward, and Vincent Glover, left this country to study for the church at the English Benedictine abbey of Lambspring, in the kingdom of Hanover. He remained at Lambspring for four years and five months as an ecclesiastical student in that then flourishing monastery of SS. Adrian and Dionysius. On 6 April 1803 the abbey of Lambspring was seized, and its territory, some twenty-six miles in circumference, formally occupied by the Prussian government. Students and monks had to scatter back, as they best could, to England. Hospitality was opportunely offered to them by the Rev. John Bolton, chaplain of Lady Ann Fairfax, of Gilling Castle, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Bolton was then living in a commodious presbytery connected with a mission founded by Lady Ann in 1780, for the Benedictines, near York, at Ampleforth, in the parish of Oswaldkirk. There the newly arrived community from Lambspring were cordially welcomed, and there almost immediately afterwards they inaugurated the now well-known Benedictine college of St. Lawrence at Ampleforth.