Thomas Spencer Baynes was a philosopher, son of a Baptist

Baptist

Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...

 minister, born at Wellington, Somerset

Wellington, Somerset

Wellington is a small industrial town in rural Somerset, England, situated south west of Taunton in the Taunton Deane district, near the border with Devon, which runs along the Blackdown Hills to the south of the town...

, 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

Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet

Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet was a Scottish metaphysician.-Early life:He was born in Glasgow. He was from an academic family, including Robert Hamilton, the economist...

, 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

Logic

In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...

 and English Literature

English literature

English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....

 at St Andrews University, in which capacity his mind was drawn to the study of Shakespeare, and he contributed to the Edinburgh Review

Edinburgh Review

The Edinburgh Review, founded in 1802, was one of the most influential British magazines of the 19th century. It ceased publication in 1929. The magazine took its Latin motto judex damnatur ubi nocens absolvitur from Publilius Syrus.In 1984, the Scottish cultural magazine New Edinburgh Review,...

and Fraser's Magazine

Fraser's Magazine

Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country was a general and literary journal published in London from 1830 to 1882, which initially took a strong Tory line in politics. It was founded by Hugh Fraser and William Maginn in 1830 and loosely directed by Maginn under the name Oliver Yorke until about 1840...

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 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica

Encyclopædia Britannica

The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...

, in which, after 1880, he was assisted by William Robertson Smith

William Robertson Smith

William Robertson Smith was a Scottish orientalist, Old Testament scholar, professor of divinity, and minister of the Free Church of Scotland. He was an editor of the Encyclopædia Britannica and contributor to the Encyclopaedia Biblica...

. Baynes was the first English-born editor of the Britannica; all earlier editors were Scottish.

External links

• 1902 Encyclopedia - Articles and illustrations from Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th Edition, of which Baynes was joint editor