Thomas Spencer Baynes (24 March 1823 in Wellington - 31 May 1887 in London) was a philosopher, son of a Baptist minister, born at Wellington, Somerset, intended to study for Baptist ministry, and was at a theological seminary at Bath with that view, but being strongly attracted to philosophical studies, left it and went to Edinburgh, when he became the favourite pupil of Sir William Hamilton, of whose philosophical system he continued an adherent.
After working as editor of a newspaper in Edinburgh, and after an interval of rest rendered necessary by a breakdown in health, Baynes resumed journalistic work in 1858 as assistant editor of the Daily News. In 1864 he was appointed Professor of Logic and English Literature at St Andrews University, in which capacity his mind was drawn to the study of Shakespeare, and he contributed to the Edinburgh Review and Fraser's Magazine valuable papers (chiefly relating to his vocabulary and the extent of his learning) afterwards collected as Shakespeare Studies.
In 1873 he was appointed to superintend the ninth ed. of the Encyclopædia Britannica, in which, after 1880, he was assisted by William Robertson Smith. Baynes was the first English-born editor of the Britannica; all earlier editors were Scottish.
John William Cousin, “
Baynes, Thomas Spencer,” in A
Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature,
London: J. M. Dent &
Sons, 1910.
THOMAS SPENCER BAYNES (1823-1887), English editor and man of letters, the son of a Baptist minister, was born at Wellington, Somerset, on the 24th of March 1823. He studied at Edinburgh University, where he was a pupil of Sir William Hamilton, whose assistant he became and of whose views on logic he became the authorized exponent. This teaching was embodied in his Essay on the New Analytic of Logical Forms, published in 1850, the same year in which he took his London University degree. This was followed in the next year by a translation of Arnauld's Port Royal Logic. In 1850 he had become editor of the Edinburgh Guardian, but after four years' work his health gave way. He spent two years in Somerset and then went to London, becoming, in 1858, assistant editor of the Daily News. In 1864 he was appointed professor of logic, metaphysics and English literature at the university of St Andrews, and in 1873 the editorship of the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica was entrusted to him. He conducted it singly until 1881, when the decline of his health rendered it necessary to provide him with a coadjutor in the person of Prof. W. Robertson Smith. Baynes, however, continued to be engaged upon the work until his death on the 31st May 1887, shortly before its completion. His article on Shakespeare (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th ed.) was republished in 1894, along with other essays on Shakespearian topics and a memoir by Prof. Lewis Campbell.
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