William Bayne

1730-82. Born on 4 November 1730 in Edinburgh, he was the second of three sons of Professor Alexander Bayne, an Edinburgh lawyer who moved to London before returning to Scotland, and of his wife, Mary Carstairs. His elder sister married the painter Allan Ramsay, who after her death in 1743 notoriously eloped with the sister of the future Admiral Sir John Lindsay.

On 5 April 1749 Bayne was commissioned lieutenant by Rear-Admiral Hon. Edward Boscawen in the East Indies, and he was appointed to the Deptford 60, Captain Thomas Lake, which vessel was paid off at Deptford in May 1750. During 1755 he was serving in North America with Vice-Admiral Boscawen’s squadron aboard the flagship Torbay 74, Captain Charles Colby.

The Seven Years War having commenced, he was promoted to command the sloop Spy 10 on 10 November 1756, in which he departed the Downs four days later on a cruise. Towards the end of the month this vessel took a convoy around to Portsmouth, but she was back in the Downs on 7 December, and she continued to operate from that station during the early part of the following year before sailing from Portsmouth for New York in the early part of May with despatches for the commander-in-chief, General Lord Loudon. She returned to Portsmouth from North America in September to be taken into dock.

Captain Bayne provided great service at the Battle of St. Kitts in January 1782 but lost his life a matter of weeks later

In May 1758 the Spy brought the Oporto convoy home, and in the following month she took the trade from Plymouth around to Portsmouth and London. By September she was employed with Rear-Admiral Charles Saunders’ squadron in the Channel before being sent out to Antigua with instructions for Commodore John Moore. Whilst off this island in January 1759 she recovered a Bristol merchantman, the Nancy, after that vessel had been captured by two French privateers. She subsequently served in Commodore Moore’s attack on Martinique, which was aborted, and in the attack on Guadeloupe, which was successful, following which she returned to England at the end of April with an account of the campaign. In July she sailed with Rear-Admiral George Rodney’s squadron for Le Havre, whose squadron was employed off that port for the remainder of the year, and Bayne eventually left the Spy in March 1760.

On 1 July 1760 he was posted captain of the Woolwich 44 after he had been commanding her for some time following the death of Captain Daniel Dering. In November this vessel escorted several troop transports out to Africa, although the convoy briefly had to put back into Plymouth due to adverse weather. She departed Goree for Sierra Leone on 16 January 1761 before continuing onto the Leeward Islands, where she served at the reduction of Martinique in early 1762 and captured the privateer Dame Auguste on 7 February. On 1 July Bayne transferred to the frigate Stag 32, continuing under Rear-Admiral Rodney’s orders in the Leeward Islands and at Jamaica during 1763 before returning home and being paid off at Chatham on 13 May 1764.

For the next fourteen years Bayne remained unemployed until he commissioned the Alfred 74 in November 1778, which ship of the line had recently been launched at Chatham. In April of the following year, he sat on the court martial of Vice-Admiral Sir Hugh Palliser which enquired into that officer’s conduct at the Battle of Ushant on 27 July 1778. Attached to the Grand Fleet, the Alfred was present in the Channel during Admiral Sir Charles Hardy’s strategic retreat of August 1779, and she fought at the Moonlight Battle off Cape St. Vincent on 16 January 1780. In July, Bayne happened to be at the Admiralty when an express was received from Rear-Admiral James Gambier at Plymouth, and which was of such import that he was detained for some hours whilst the first lord, the Earl of Sandwich, consulted the King. At 2 o’clock the next morning he was dispatched to Portsmouth with instructions for Admiral Francis Geary, the commander-in-chief of the Grand Fleet, and he commanded the Alfred in the early stages of the Channel Fleet’s campaign between July and December.

On 27 October 1780, the Alfred sailed for the West Indies, and she was present at the capture of St. Eustatius on 3 February 1781. She subsequently led the British line at the indecisive Battle of Fort Royal on 29 April 1781 and at the Battle of Chesapeake Bay on 5 September where, due to the rigid interpretation of the standing fighting instructions, she was unable to play an effective part. Returning to the Leeward Islands with Rear-Admiral Sir Samuel Hood’s fleet in the autumn, she was involved in a collision with the frigate Nymphe 36, Captain John Ford, off St. Kitts in January 1782. Nobody was held accountable for the incident and indeed, Bayne earned great praise for quickly restoring the Alfred to order and joining Hood’s repulse of the French at the Battle of St. Kitts on 25/26 January.

Whilst leading the British line in the skirmish with the French fleet on 9 April 1782, prior to the Battle of the Saintes on 12 April, Bayne’s leg was carried off at mid-thigh by a chain shot and he died before a tourniquet could be applied. A monument in Westminster Abbey was erected to commemorate him along with Captains William Blair and Lord Robert Manners, who also lost their lives through wounds incurred at the Battle of the Saintes.

On 27 September 1772 he reportedly married a Miss Read of Bishopsgate Street, London.

Bayne was said to have been well versed in military mathematics, and on the day of his death he supervised the firing of a carronade of his own design.