150 



Bishop's Cannings. 



The rest of the money was invested for the purpose of providing 

 an organist, and for the tuning and repairing of the instrument 

 when necessary, to which purpose the interest of the money has 

 been faithfully applied. 1 



Of the donor of the organ, I am able to give a short account 

 Mr. William Bayley was the son of a small farmer at Bishop's 

 Cannings, and assisted his father in his business, devoting his 

 leisure hours to reading, writing, and summing. Feeling a desire to 

 see more of the world than he could in his native village, he pro- 

 ceeded to Portsmouth and went to sea. After some experience 

 in navigation he was taken on board Captain Cook's ship, when 

 that great navigator was about to commence his second voyage 

 round the globe, and having evinced an aptitude for astronomical 

 pursuits, was employed by Mr. "Wales, (the astronomer in some of the 

 voyages,) in assisting him in taking observations and making calcu- 

 lations. On the ship's return, availing himself of the knowledge 

 he had acquired during the expedition, he set up a Naval Academy 

 at Portsea ; and becoming head of the Royal Naval School there, had 

 the honour of training many young gentlemen for the Royal Navy 

 Having obtained considerable wealth, he retired from his tutorial 

 duties ; and on making a visit to his native village, expressed to 

 Mr. Brown, one of the principal inhabitants and a churchwarden, 

 his desire to confer on the parish of his birth a benefit, by which 

 he should also be remembered. His wish was to build and endow 

 a school in which the youth of the parish should be taught arith- 

 metic and practical mathematics ; but difficulties interposing to 

 prevent the accomplishment of this desire, he determined to give 

 (as above mentioned) an organ to the church, with a sufficiency for 

 the payment of an organist, and the repairing of the instrument 

 He purchased an estate at Imber, in this county of Wilts : but if 

 he ever resided there it must have been for a very short time, for 

 he was living at Portsea in 1810, and died there in December of 

 that year; at what age is not recorded. 



1 The money was originally placed in private hands, it was afterwards trans- 

 ferred to the Public Funds, where it now stands in the names of T. H. S. Soth- 

 eron Estcourt, Esq., Wm. Macdonald, clerk, Thomas Brown, and George Skeate 

 Buddie. 



