him of much pressure of work. He continued nevertheless to labour assiduously until his somewhat sudden death in London, 31 May 1887, a year before the completion of the 'Encyclopædia.' The reminiscences of Carlyle's conversation, previously mentioned, one of the most lively of his compositions, had been printed only a few weeks previously. A memorial portrait, by Mr. Lowes Dickinson, the gift of friends and pupils, was presented to his widow in 1888.
Baynes was an excellent logician, and qualified by the bent of his mind to excel in any department of literary research. He seems to have been averse to deal with matters incapable of exact demonstration: hence his biography of Shakespeare, so masterly in many departments of the subject, ignores others; and his essay on Shelley in the 'Edinburgh Review,' in some respects the best in the language, is in others incomplete. As a man his character stands among the highest. 'He was,' says Sir John Skelton, 'never weary in well doing, in true sympathy, in unaffected kindness. He was very keen, satirical, intellectually incisive, quite a man of affairs, and accustomed to mix with all sorts and conditions of men; but he was one of those rare characters which, in the best sense, are without guile.' The senate of St. Andrews University, upon his death, warmly acknowledged his 'ever happy influence as a wise counsellor on all questions of public and academic policy.'
[Memoir by Professor Lewis Campbell, prefixed to Baynes's Shakespeare Studies, 1894; Skelton's The Table Talk of Shirley; Veitch's Life of Sir William Hamilton; personal knowledge.]
BAZALGETTE, Sir JOSEPH WILLIAM (1819–1891), civil engineer, son of Joseph William Bazalgette, commander in the royal navy, was born at Enfield on 28 March 1819. His family were of French extraction. He was educated at private schools, and in 1836 became a pupil of Sir John Benjamin McNeill [q. v.] Then for a short time he was employed on drainage and reclamation works in the north of Ireland. In 1842 he set up in business as a consulting engineer at Westminster, being engaged chiefly on railway work, but owing to a breakdown in his health he was forced very shortly afterwards to give up all active work for more than a year.
In 1849 he joined the staff of the metropolitan commission of sewers, a body which had been created in 1848 to replace the eight separate municipal bodies responsible for the drainage of London. From 1848 to 1855 no less than six different commissions were appointed, and though schemes for the complete drainage of the metropolis were prepared for the third of these commissions by G. B. Forster and William Haywood [q. v. Suppl.] (these schemes were described in two reports dated March 1850 and January 1851), nothing was done, and Forster, worn out with the anxieties and disappointments, resigned office. Bazalgette was selected to succeed him as engineer-in-chief, and he at once, in conjunction with Haywood, set to work to prepare a new scheme based on the proposals of 1850–1.
The general board of health, however, put a stop to these schemes, and again matters were at a deadlock until, by an act passed on 16 Aug. 1855, the representative body known as the metropolitan board of works came into being, the board appointing Bazalgette their chief engineer. This new body was not able, however, to expedite matters, as the plans which they ordered to be prepared for the main drainage scheme had to be approved by government. The plans prepared by Bazalgette were submitted in June 1856 to Sir Benjamin Hall, then chief commissioner to her majesty's works; he objected to certain portions of the scheme, and the whole matter was then referred to a commission of three engineers, including Captain (afterwards Sir) Douglas Galton, R.E. [q. v. Suppl.] This commission reported in July 1857, and somewhat unfavourably to the board's plans; they recommended a much more expensive scheme, and a position for the outfalls of the main sewers much lower down the river.
The metropolitan board of works referred the matter back to their engineer in consultation with George Parker Bidder [q. v.] and Thomas Hawksley [q. v. Suppl.], who sent in a report in April 1858, criticising the conclusions of the government commission, and the whole scheme was again hung up. A change of ministry, however, led to a rapid change in the state of affairs. Disraeli introduced a short act, which was passed in August 1858, giving the board full control with regard to the drainage works proposed. The complete designs were at once put in hand, the first contracts were let, and in 1865 this splendid system of main drainage was opened by the prince of Wales (afterwards Edward VII), though the whole work was not finished until 1875.
These great works were fully described in a paper read by Bazalgette before the Institution of Civil Engineers entitled 'The Main Drainage of London and the Interception of the Sewage from the River Thames' (Proc.
