2 BAILY. 



three acres of land were cultivated on the most approved system by 

 the boarders, who also took a part in household work. The subjects 

 taught were land-surveying, mapping, the elements of Botany, the 

 use of the barometer, rain-gauge, &c., and there was a good library 

 with various scientific and useful apparatus. 



Mr. Allen died at Lindfield, the scene of his zealous benevolence, 

 in the seventy-fourth year of his age. English Cyclopaedia, London, 

 1856. Monthly notices of the Royal Ast. Soc. vol. 6, Feb., 1844. 



FRANCIS BAILY, F.R.S. &c. 



Born April 28, 1774. Died August 30, 1844. 



This eminent English astronomer was born at Newbury in Berk- 

 shire, and received his education at the school of the Rev. Mr. Best 

 of that town, where he early showed a propensity to physical inquiry, 

 obtaining among his schoolmates the nickname of ' the Philosopher 

 of Newbury.' Francis Baily quitted this school, when fourteen years 

 old, for a house of business in the city of London, and remained there 

 until his twenty-second year, when, desirous of the enlargement of 

 views which travel affords, he embarked for America in 1795. Mr. 

 Baily remained there nearly three years, travelling over the whole 

 of the United States and through much of the western country, ex- 

 periencing at various times great hardships and privations. 



Shortly after his return to England he commenced business in 

 London as a stockbroker, and was taken into partnership by a Mr. 

 Whitmore, in the year 1799. While engaged in this business he pub- 

 lished several works on Life Annuities, one of which, entitled ' The 

 Doctrine of Life Annuities and Insurances analytically investigated 

 and explained,' was published in 1810, with an appendix in 1813, 

 continuing to this day to be a standard work on the subject, and it 

 may serve to give some idea of the estimation in which it was 

 held, to mention, that when out of print, copies used to sell for four 

 to five times their original value. 



Although Mr. Baily was thus actively devoting himself to matters 

 of a direct commercial interest, he was still able to find time for 

 works of a more general nature : in 1810 he wrote his first astro- 

 nomical paper on the celebrated Solar Eclipse, said to have been 

 predicted by Thales, published in the 'Philosophical Transactions 

 for 1811, and in 1813 published a work entitled 'An Epitome of 

 Universal History.' Astronomy, however, was his chief pursuit; 

 and shortly after the celebrated fraud of De Beranger on the Stock Ex- 

 change in 1814, (in the detection and exposure of which Baily had 



