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# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Baker, Philip

1904 Errata appended.
​BAKER, PHILIP, D.D. (fl. 1558–1601), provost of King's College, was born at Barnstaple, Devonshire, in or about 1524, and educated at Eton, whence he was elected in 1540 to King's College, Cambridge (B.A., 1544; M.A., 1548; B.D., 1554; D.D., 1562). He was nominated provost of King's College by Queen Elizabeth in 1558. Baker held several church livings and cathedral appointments; and he was vice-chancellor of the university in 1561-2. About February 1561-2 he was compelled to resign the rectory of St. Andrew Wardrobe on account of his refusal to subscribe a confession of faith which Grindal, bishop of London, required from all his clergy. Queen Elizabeth occupied the provost's lodge at King's College during her visit to Cambridge in 1564, and Baker was one of the disputants in the divinity act then kept before her majesty (Cooper, Annals of Cambridge, ii. 199, 200). In 1565 some of the fellows of the college exhibited articles against Baker to Nicholas Bullingham, bishop of Lincoln, their visitor. In these the provost was charged with neglect of duty in divers particulars, and with favouring popery and papists. The bishop gave him certain injunctions, which, however, he disregarded. 'By them the provost was enjoined to destroy a great deal of popish stuff, as mass books, couchers, and grails, copes, vestments, candlesticks, crosses, pixes, paxes, and the brazen rood, which the provost did not perform, but preserved them in a secret corner.
In 1569 the fellows again complained of him to Bishop Grindal and Sir William Cecil, chancellor of the university; and ultimately the queen issued a special commission for the general visitation of the college. Thereupon Baker fled to Louvain, 'the great receptacle for the English popish clergy, and was formally deprived of the provostship 22 Feb. 1569-70. About the same period he lost all his other preferments. Fuller (Hist. of Univ. of Camb. ed. Prickett and Wright, 271) says: 'Even such as dislike his judgment will commend his integrity, that having much of the college money and plate in his custody (and more at his command, aiming to secure, not enrich himself), he faithfully resigned all; yea, carefully sent back the college horses which carried him to the sea side.'
He was living in 1601, and it is not improbable that he had then been permitted to return to England.
[Baker MS. xxx. 241; Cole MS. xiv. 28; Le Neve's Fasti Eccl. Anglic, ed. Hardy, i. 528, iii. 604, 618, 683; Nichols's Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, iii. 119, 120; Cooper's Annals of Cambridge, ii. 175, 176, 191, 199, 200, 203, 224, 225, 244-247, 293; Cooper's Athen. Cantab, ii. 322.]
T. C.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.13 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 14 | i | 35 | Baker, Philip : after He insert was proctor at Cambridge in 1549 and |
| | | 38 | after appointments; insert he was a prebendary at Hereford 1560-9. |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Baker, Robert

​BAKER, ROBERT (fl. 1562–3), voyager to Guinea, started on his first voyage 'to seeke for golde' in October 1562. The expedition consisted of two ships, the Minion and the Primrose, and was 'set out by Sir William Garrard, Sir William Chester, Mr. Thomas Lodge, Anthony Hickman, and Edward Castelin.' Baker's efforts to traffic with the natives on the Guinea coast were not very successful, and he was wounded in a fight. But he returned home in safety early in 1563. In November of the same year he made a second voyage to 'Guinie and the river of Sesto' as factor in an expedition of two ships, the John Baptist and the Martin, sent out by London merchants. On arriving at Guinea, Baker landed with eight companions to negotiate with the natives, but a storm drove the ships from their moorings, and Baker and his companions were abandoned. After suffering much privation six of the nine men died. The three survivors were rescued by a French ship, and imprisoned in France as prisoners of war; but they appear to have been subsequently released.
Baker wrote accounts in verse of both voyages, which were printed by Richard Hakluyt in his 'Voyages,' in 1589. ​[Hakluyt's Collections (1810),ii. 518-23; J. H. Moore's Collections of Voyages and Travels, i. 328]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Baker, Richard (1741-1818)

​BAKER, RICHARD, D.D. (1741–1818), theological writer, was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. (as seventh senior optime) in 1762, M.A. in 1765, and D.D. in 1788. He was elected to a fellowship in his college, and in 1772 was presented to the rectory of Cawston-with-Portland in Norfolk, which he held till his death in 1818. His works are: 1. 'How the Knowledge of Salvation is attainable,' a sermon on John vii. 17, 1782, 4to. 2. 'The Harmony or Agreement of the Four Evangelists, in four parts,' London, 1783-87, 8vo. 3. 'The Psalms of David Evangelized, wherein are seen the Unity of Divine Truth, the Harmony of the Old and New Testament, and the peculiar Doctrines of Christianity, in agreement with the Experience of Believers in all Ages,' London, 1811, 8vo.
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Baker, Samuel

​BAKER, SAMUEL, D.D. (d. 1660?), divine, was matriculated as a pensioner of Christ's College, Cambridge, 11 July 1612, became B.A. in 1615-6, M.A. in 1619, and was elected a fellow of his college. On 7 May 1623 he was incorporated M.A. at Oxford, and he proceeded B.D. at Cambridge in 1627. The corporation of London presented him to the rectory of St. Margaret Pattens in that city, where he at one time enjoyed great popularity as a puritanical preacher. He was, however,'taken off from those courses,' and made domestic chaplain to Juxon, bishop of London. On 29 Oct. 1636 he became prebendary of Totenhall in the church of St. Paul. Having in 1637 resigned the rectory of St. Margaret Pattens, he was, on 5 July in the same year, instituted to that of St. Mary-at-Hill. On 28 Aug. 1638 the king conferred on him a canonry of Windsor. This he resigned on 17 May 1639, and on the 20th of the same month he was nominated to a canonry in the church of Canterbury. In the same year he was created D.D. In 1640 he resigned the rectory of St. Christopher in London, and on 4 April in that year became rector of South Weald in Essex. Soon after the assembling of the Long parliament he was complained of for having licensed certain books and refused his license to others, and he was subsequently sequestered from all his preferments, persecuted, and imprisoned.
Baker, who is supposed to have died in the early part of 1660, was one of the learned persons who rendered material assistance in the preparation of Bishop Walton's Polyglot Bible.
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Baker, Thomas (1625?-1689)

​BAKER, THOMAS (1625?–1689), mathematician, is said to have been fifteen years old when he became a battler at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, in 1640. In spite of the puritanical education which, according to Wood, he received at the hall, 'he did some little petite service for his majesty within the garrison of Oxon.' It does not appear what was the nature of the 'little employments' through which, according to the same authority, he became 'minister' of Bishop's Nympton, in Devonshire, He was collated to the vicarage of Bishop's Nympton in 1681; but he seems to have lived for some years previously in that retired spot (perhaps as curate). His secluded life—as much of it at least as could be spared from professional occupations and the cares of a family—-was devoted to mathematical studies. He speaks of himself as one 'who pretend(s) not to learning nor to the profession of the mathematic art, but one who(m) at some subcisive hours for diversion sake its study much delights.' He published in 1684 the 'Geometrical Key, or Gate of Equations Unlocked.' Montucla remembers having 'read somewhere' that Baker was imprisoned for debt at Newgate; upon which it was facetiously remarked that it would have been better for him to have had the key of Newgate than that of equations.
The leading idea of Baker's work is the solution of biquadratic equations (and those of a lower degree) by a geometrical construction, a parabola intersected by a circle. The method is distinguished from that of Descartes by not requiring the equation to be previously deprived of its second term. The general principle is worked out in great detail; the author being of opinion that conciseness, like 'a watch contrived within the narrow sphere of the signet of a ring,' is rather admirable than useful. Some account of the work is given in the 'Transactions of the Royal Society' (referred to below).
There exists a 'catalogue of the mathematical works of the learned Mr. Thomas Baker, with a proposal about printing the same.' The proposal was 'approved and agreed to by the council of the Royal Society,' but was not carried out.
F. Y. E.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Baker, William (1668-1732)

​BAKER, WILLIAM (1668–1732), bishop of Norwich, was the son of William Baker, vicar of Ilton, Somersetshire, where he was born in 1668. He was educated at Crewkerne School, and entered at Wadham College, Oxford, of which college he was first fellow, and eventually became warden in 1719. He was successively rector of St. Ebbes, of Padworth, and of Blayden, all in the diocese of Oxford. In 1714 he was collated to the archdeaconry of Oxford. In ​1723 he was promoted to the see of Bangor, whence in 1727 he was translated to Norwich. He held the rectory of St. Giles-in-the-Fields in commendam up to the time of his death, which occurred at Bath, 4 Dec. 1732. He was never married. During his brief tenure of the see of Bangor he managed to make his only brother treasurer of the church there, and his two nephews were provided for by being made registrars of the diocese of Norwich. Blomefield, the historian of Norfolk, who was ordained by him, gives the titles of four sermons which he printed; one of them was published by special command of Queen Anne in 1710. He was chaplain in ordinary to George I. In the abbey church at Bath there is a monument to him with a fulsome epitaph.
A. J.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bell, James (fl.1551-1596)

​BELL, JAMES (fl. 1551–1596), reformer, was a native of the diocese of Bath, Somersetshire, and was admitted a fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, probably in 1547. He graduated B.A. in 1551, and on 30 May 1556 was nominated a fellow of Trinity College, when he was appointed rhetoric lecturer. The doubts expressed by Wood as to whether these details do not apply to James Bell, a Roman catholic priest executed in 1584 [q. v.], are set at rest by Bliss in a life of Bell added to the 'Athenæ.' Bell in the Michaelmas term of 1550 gave up his fellowship, and became a zealous partisan of the Reformation. In 1564 he wrote and dedicated to Queen Elizabeth 'An Account of Cæcilia, Princess of Sweden, travelling into England,' which exists only in a manuscript preserved in the British Museum (MS. Royal 17). From the character of his description it is probable that he accompanied the princess to England. The other works of Bell are translations from the Latin as follows:
* 'Sermon preached at the christening of a certain Jew at London,' by John Foxe, 1573.
* 'Sermon of the Evangelical Olive,' by John Foxe, 1578.
* 'Treatise touching the Libertie of a Christian Man,' by Luther, 1579.
* 'The Pope Confuted—the Holy and Apostolical Church Confuting the Pope—the First Action,' by John Foxe, 1580.
* 'Answer Apologetical to Hierome Osorius, his Slanderous Invectives,' by Haddon and Foxe, 1581.
On 13 Feb. 1595 Bell was presented to the prebend of Holcombe in the church of Wells, and on 11 Oct. 1596 to that of Combe in the same church. The date and place of his death are unknown.
[Wood's Athenie (Bliss), i. 661-2; Fasti, i. 132, 137; Tanner's BibL Brit. 94.]
T. F. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bell, John (1747-1798)

​BELL, JOHN (1747–1798), artillerist, was the eldest son of a hatter at Carlisle, where he was born on 1 March 1747. His father ruined himself in attempts to discover the longitude. In 1765 Bell joined the artillery. He served at Gilbraltar and afterwards in England. He was at Southsea in 1782, and was an eye-witness of the foundering of the Royal George. He invented a plan for destroying the wreck, which was the same as one carried out by Colonel Pasley in 1839. He also invented the 'sunproof' for testing the soundness of guns, long in use in the royal arsenal; a 'gyn,' called by his name, and a petard, of which there is a model in the Woolwich laboratory; a crane for descending mines; and a harpoon for taking whales (for the last two of which he received premiums from the Society of Arts); and an apparatus for rescuing shipwrecked mariners, said to be identical with that afterwards devised by Captain Manby. For this he received a premium from the Society of Arts of fifty guineas, and in 1815 the House of Commons voted 500l. to his daughter (Mrs. Whitfield) in recognition of the same invention. In 1793 the Duke of Richmond gave him a commission as second-lieutenant in the artillery, and in 1794 he was promoted to a first-lieutenancy. He was employed in a secret expedition for the destruction of the Dutch fleet in the Texel, which was abandoned.
He died of apoplexy at Queensborough on 1 June 1798, whilst engaged in fitting out fire-ships.
[United Services Journal, April 1849; Society of Arts' Transactions (1897), vol. xxv., where there is an engraving of his apparatus for wrecks.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bell, Henry Nugent

​BELL, HENRY NUGENT (1792–1822), genealogist, was the eldest son of George Bell, Esq., of Belleview, county Fermanagh (Inner Temple Admission Register). He followed the profession of a legal antiquary, and, in order to obtain a recognised status, entered himself at the Inner Temple, 17 Nov. 1818. In the same year he acquired considerable distinction by his successful advocacy of the claim of Mr. Hans Francis Hastings to the long-dormant earldom of Huntingdon; the estates, however, with the exception, it is said, of a mill in Yorkshire, had passed away from the title, and were legally invested in the Earl of Moira's family. Bell published a detailed account of the ​proceedings in ‘The Huntingdon Peerage,’ 4to, London, 1820, pp. 413, and the narrative of his various adventures, which are given at length, displays a suspicious luxuriance of imagination not altogether in keeping with what professed to be a grave genealogical treatise. To the unsold copies a new title-page was affixed in 1821, with a genealogical table and additional portraits (Lowndes, Bibliographer's Manual, ed. Bohn, i. 149). Bell was also employed by Mr. J. L. Crawfurd to further his claim to the titles and estates of Crawfurd and Lindsay, and, if we may credit the common report, received no less a sum than 5,036l. for prosecuting the suit. He was cut off before he could bring the matter to a decisive issue, and dying insolvent, the unfortunate claimant's money was in a great measure lost (The Crawfurd Peerage, by an Antiquary, chap. iv.; Dobie, Examination of the Claim of J. L. Crawfurd, p. 15). According to Lady Anne Hamilton (Secret History of the Court of England, i. 324, ii. 108), Bell, with other minions, was delegated by Lord Sidmouth in 1819 to incite the starving people of Manchester against the ministry—if that were needed—and by their means the meeting of 16 Aug. was convoked which led to the massacre of Peterloo. The circumstances attending his death as narrated in the journals of the day were somewhat tragic. An action to recover a sum of money advanced to him by an engraver named Cooke was tried on 18 Oct. 1822, and a verdict passed against him; on the same evening he died. His younger brother was Sir George Bell, K.C.B. [q. v.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bell, James (1524-1584)

​BELL, JAMES (1524–1584), catholic priest, born at Warrington in Lancashire, in 1524, was educated at Oxford, where he was ordained priest in Queen Mary's reign. For some time he refused to conform to the alterations in religion made by Queen Elizabeth; but afterwards, adopting the tenets of the Reformation, he exercised the functions of a minister of the church of England for twenty years, and was beneficed in several parts of the kingdom. In 1581 he applied to a lady to solicit her good offices to procure for him ​a small readership, of which her husband was the patron. This lady, being a catholic, upbraided him with his cowardice, and exhorted him to lead a life in accordance with his sacred profession. Moved by her words he sought reconciliation with the catholic church, and laboured zealously as a priest for two years among the poorer class of catholics. In January 1583-4 he was apprehended by a pursuivant, and was brought to trial at the Lent assizes at Lancaster. He behaved with great courage, and on being convicted said to the judge: 'I beg your lordship would add to the sentence that my lips and the tops of my fingers may be cut off for having sworn and subscribed to the articles of heretics, contrary both to my conscience and to God's truth.' He was executed at Lancaster on 20 April 1584. John Finch, a layman, suffered at the same time and place for being reconciled to the catholic church, and denying the queen's spiritual supremacy.
[Wood's Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 132; Dodd's Church Hist. ii. 102; Concertatio Eccl. Catholicæ in AngliA', ed. Bridgewater (1594), ii. 160164; Challhonor's Missionary Priests (1741), i. 160; Gibson's Lydiate Hall, Introd. xxxiv.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bell, John (1745-1831)

​BELL, JOHN (1745–1831), publisher, has been called by Charles Knight 'the mischievous spirit, the very Puck of booksellers. John Bell had defied the power of a combination of some forty publishing firms, who called themselves 'the trade,' and issued books on the joint-stock principle, in order to secure a monopoly of the best publications. ​In 1777 these gentlemen met at the Chapter Coffee-house, Paternoster Row, and resolved to bring out a collection of the works of English poets, afterwards known as 'Johnson's Poets,' of which the first edition appeared in 1779, and the second in 1790.
Bell, who was agent for the brothers Martin, owners of the Apollo Press in Edinburgh, brought out, in London 1782, their edition of the 'British Poets,' the early volumes of which, issued in 1777, had stimulated the London trade to their undertaking of 1779. Bell's work was in one hundred and nine volumes, 18mo, and bore the general title of 'Bell's edition: The Poets of Great Britain complete from Chaucer to Churchill.' Each volume was illustrated by a frontispiece, an engraved title or a portrait after the designs of Stodhardt, Mortimer, and other artists of the day. Martin and Bell were debarred by an exclusive copyright from inserting in their collection Young, Mallet, Akenside, and Gray, which appeared in the London trade edition, together with Dorset, Stepney, Walsh, Duke, and Sprat, rhymesters whom Bell had cast aside. The attractiveness of this pocket edition nevertheless was indubitable, and Mr. Bell's enterprise and good taste were generally acknowledged. He published a similar edition of 'Shakespeare' and 'The British Theatre.'
He is distinguished among printers as being the first to discard the long s (s) from his fount of type. He was one of the original proprietors of the 'Fashionable World,' of the 'Oracle,' and of the 'Morning Post' (1772). He established a Sunday newspaper, 'Bell's Weekly Messenger,' much esteemed for its country politics and accounts of country markets. 'La Belle Assemblée,' an illustrated monthly publication, was another of his successful projects. In Leigh Hunt's 'Autobiography' (i. 276) is a description of Bell's appearance, ending thus: 'He had no acquirements, perhaps not even grammar; but his taste in putting forth a publication, and getting the best artists to adorn it, was new
in those times, and may be admired in any.
Bell was, in fact, the pioneer in that kind of publication so much in vogue in later days, by which the multitude is taught to feel an interest in the best literature by means of
prints and illustrations executed by good artists. He died at Fulham in 1831, in the eighty-sixth year of his age.
[Timperley's Dictionary of Printers, p. 916; Knight's Shadows of the Old Booksellers, p. 250, 246, 276; Leigh Hunt's Autobiography, i. 276.]
R. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bell, John (1764-1836)

​BELL, JOHN (1764–1836), barrister-at-law, only son of Matthew Bell, was born at Kendal, Westmoreland, 23 Oct. 1764, and was educated at the grammar school at Beetham in the same county and at Trinity College, Cambridge. There he graduated in 1786, was first Smith's prizeman and senior wrangler, and was subsequently elevated to a fellowship at his college, and entered at the Middle Temple 10 Nov. 1787, and at Gray's Inn 8 Nov. 1790, having taken his M.A. degree in the preceding year. After reading for some time in the chambers of Samuel (afterwards Sir Samuel) Romilly, he began to 'practise below the bar' i.e. as a special pleader, in 1790, and was called to the bar in 1792. He devoted himself to the equity branch of the profession, and gradually acquired an extensive practice in the court of Chancery. He did not, however, attain the rank of king's counsel until 1816, though long before that date he had gained a reputation as a lawyer second to that of none of his contemporaries. Lord Eldon is said, in conversation with the prince regent, to have described Bell as the best lawyer then at the equity bar, although he could 'neither read, write, walk, nor talk.' Bell was lame, spoke with a broad Westmoreland accent, the effect of which was heightened by a confirmed and distressing stammer, and wrote a hand never more than barely legible. He was accustomed to say that he wrote three hands, one which he himself could read, one which his clerk could read, and one which neither he nor his clerk could read. Nevertheless, his penetrating intelligence and thorough knowledge of law secured for him a large and lucrative practice. Between 1816 and 1819 his name occurs with extraordinary frequency in the reports, but thenceforward is very rarely found there; and he does not seem to have been engaged in any case of great importance after 1820, some years before he retired from professional life. He gave evidence before the commission which was appointed in 1824 to inquire into and report upon the procedure of the court of Chancery, but his lifelong familiarity with the business of this court appears to have had the effect of rendering him almost as obstinately averse to change as the lord chancellor (Eldon). Though conservative as a lawyer, in politics Bell was a whig. In person he was short, stout, and round-shouldered. In 1830 he published a pamphlet entitled 'Thoughts on the proposed Alterations in the Court of Chancery.' He died at his house in Bedford Square 6 Feb. 1836, leaving his wife Jane, daughter of Henry Grove, and an only son, Matthew Bell, now of Bourne Park, Kent, surviving him. Lord Langdale, who had been his pupil, was one of his executors. ​He was buried at Milton, near Canterbury, where he had an estate. His fortune was considerable. He married late in life, his widow died in 1866.
[Foster's Coll. Gen. Reg. Gray's Inn; Gent. Mag. (1836), 670; Merivale's Reports; Swanston's Reports; Wilson's Chancery Reports; Jacob and Walker's Reports, ii. 9; Jacob's Reports, 633; Ch. Com. Report, App. A. 1; Times, 7 Oct. 1826; Hardy's Memoir of Lord Langdale, i. 238-43.]
J. M. R.