Author: Bayley, Frederick William Naylor
Biography:
BAYLEY, Frederick William Naylor, formerly Naylor (1808-52: ODNB)
He was born on 7 Nov. 1812 and baptised Frederick William Naylor at Stepney, London, on 29 Nov. (It is possible that he was born in Ireland as both his and his widow's applications to the RLF later stated.) His parents were Diana (Collier) and George Naylor but his father, a teacher of navigation, died in 1821 and his mother remarried. With his stepfather, Henry Addington Bayley of the army commissariat, whose surname he adopted, he travelled to Barbados in 1825. On 16 Dec. 1832 he married Isabella Dix at All Souls, Langham Place, London; they had no children who survived infancy. Bayley contributed verse to periodicals and served for a time in 1831 as a music critic for the Morning Post. In addition to the volumes of verse listed here, he was the author of Four Years' Residence in the West Indies (1830) and of a novel based on his experience of debtors' prison (Scenes and Stories by a Clergyman in Debt, 1835). He also wrote books for children, edited the works of Mrs. Sigourney (q.v.), started up a penny weekly, and in 1842 became the first editor of The London Illustrated News. After two bankruptcies and a further imprisonment in the Queen's Bench (1848) he lost his position and his income. The RLF came to his assistance with £20 in 1837. In 1848 it is not clear what decision they took, but in Jan. 1853 they granted his destitute widow Isabella £25. Bayley had died of alcoholism at an inn at Birmingham on 1 Dec. 1852 and was buried at the Warstone Lane cemetery there on 7 Dec. The Morning Post, hailing his accomplishments, charitably gave the cause of death as bronchitis. His widow at that time sought a recommendation to a position as matron of an orphanage in Wanstead; her later life is obscure. (ODNB 28 Jan. 2025; findmypast.com 28 Jan. 2025; RLF #891; Morning Post 9 Dec. 1852) HJ
Other Names:
- F. W. N. Bayley