Biographical Sketches....

Mrs Mary Ann Baynes departed this life at 45 Ladbroke square, Notting hill February 15th 1862 aged ninety. Her father was one of Mr Wesley's earliest and favourite Local preachers; and she loved to speak of her personal recollections of that venerable servant of God. She distinctly remembered his impressive style in the pulpit, and his kind condescension toward children, of which latter she herself received many proofs.

On one occasion she was present at the City road chapel when Mr Wesley, occupying the pulpit, was surrounded by his travelling preachers. After a short sermon to the congregation generally, he began to deliver an address to the preachers particularly, when they arose en masse. She described the effect as most thrilling. Mr Wesley himself not being one of the least affected of the company.

The mother of Mrs Baynes, together with a few others, formed a plan for the regular visitation of the sick. On the arrival of Mr Adam Clarke in London, he organized, from this beginning, "The Benevolent or Stranger’s Friend Society" which has been the means of so much good in the worst localities. The daughter recollected the joy and even pride she had felt on being entrusted with the delivery of sundry weekly subscriptions at the Foundry.

Picture courtesy of the John Rylands Library, Manchester University

At the early age of seven, being anxious for her soul's salvation, she joined a class for children, under the guidance of one Sally Thompson; but witnessing much inconsistency in her companions, she discontinued her attendance.

At the age of eighteen, being then a member of Mrs Hester Ann Rogers’s class she obtained a clear view of her acceptance before God. And this happy confidence in the merits of her atoning Saviour she retained to the close of her life.

Having attained her twenty first year, she became the wife of Mr William Baynes, late of Paternoster Row; where, and at their country residence, they enjoyed the friendship and society of the most eminent of the Wesleyan preachers stationed in London. Their intimacy with Dr Adam Clarke terminated only with his death in 1832. In the interim between the years 1815 and 1832, Mrs Baynes suffered the loss of children, husband and a large property. Yet her strong faith and Christian fortitude never failed her. With meekness she bowed to the rod, exclaiming with Job, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord".

Mrs Baynes was a class leader during a period of some thirty years. The names of some of the members of her class were well known. But the last twenty years of her life were spent with her daughter and son in law at Notting hill; and, on her removal thither she resigned her duties as leader, and enrolled her name in the class book of an humble Christian in the Queens road, Bayswater. At that time Wesleyan Methodism had sunk in Bayswater to the lowest ebb. With the exception of the venerable Joseph Sutcliffe, and his daughters she was precluded from the society of that body to which she had all her life been attached. She felt this privation acutely until the excellent minister of Horbury chapel visited her and by his heavenly conversation did much to supply the want. Meanwhile she continued in church membership with her old friends to the last.

The whole career of this pious lady was thoroughly consistent. She never witnessed the commission of sin without rebuking it; and the aptitude(?) of her words to the occasion evinced great natural talent. With the Holy Scriptures, and the best hymns of the Wesleyan collection she was so thoroughly conversent, that a suitable application of them never failed her. The strength of her mind and the solidity of her judgement, were retained almost to the end.

In her latter days, however, she became extremely deaf, and was thereby shut out from religious intercourse. Now the treasures of her retentive memory stood her in admirable stead; and she thus drew water out of the wells of salvation. On Sunday July 22nd 1860 while suffering this privation, she said to her daughter early in the morning, "O I have had such a glorious manifestation of the mercy and goodness of God, as I never expected to experience on this side of eternity; and I feel unutterably happy". Her contemplations on Divine love were often overpowering; and she would frequently exclaim, "God only knows the love of God". In her afflictions she cultivated a thankful spirit, and endeavoured to instil the same into others. Two days before her death, her son Henry endeavoured to bring to her auditory nerve the sound of a well known hymn. When, completely baffled, he gave up, she sweetly observed, "In heaven there will be no impediments". She had for many years contemplated death as merely the gate of heaven; and after some one or two previous illnesses had expressed disappointment that they had not taken her home. When at length she was passing through the dark valley, she triumphantly exclaimed, "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want". Happy spirit ! Often and often she had emphatically repeated,

There we shall see His face,
And never, never sin".

And now she has entered into that beatific state ! May the influence of her goodness extend to successive generations. Her remains were interred in the cemetery at Kensal Green; but an inscription to her memory also appears on the stone of her family grave in the burial ground behind the City road chapel.

E.A.G. (Esther Ann Gilbert [nee Baynes])