Friends of Hastings Cemetery

Charles Bagot Cayley was born on 9 July 1823 in Beckeva near St Petersburg, Russia.  His father Henry Cayley was a prominent English merchant in Russia.   Henry too had been born in St Petersburg when his father was British Consul to the Russian court.

In 1830 Henry moved back to London and Charles attended Mr Pollecary’s school in Blackheath and studied at King’s College, London, where he was taught Italian by the exiled Gabriele Pasquale Giuseppe Rossetti, and Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating there in 1845.

He was a brilliant linguist and has been described as a “shy, unworldly intellectual with a cerebral sense of humour”.

Charles is in the census on 30 March 1851 in Grove, Blackheath, Lewisham, Kent, England.  On 30 March 1851 he was a Patent Design Editor in Grove, Blackheath, Lewisham, Kent, England.

Charles appeared in the census on 7 April 1861 in Blackheath, Lewisham, Kent, England.  On 7 April 1861 he was an a Translator.

He appeared in the census on 3 April 1881 in 4 South Crescent, Camden, London, England.

Charles died on 5 December 1883 at the age of 60 at 4 South Crescent, Camden, London, England.  He was buried after 5 December 1883 in Hastings, Sussex, England.

In Loving Memory of Henrietta Caroline Cayley.
Born 7th August 1823
Died 28th July 1886

For several years he worked in partnership as a patent agent. The partnership was dissolved in 1855, when he entered - again in partnership - a new venture: setting up advertising hoardings on railway stations. Unfortunately this venture was unsuccessful - it may well have been ahead of its time - and was dissolved in 1858, with Charles Bagot Cayley losing a lot of money.

The rest of his life was spent in relative poverty, living in central London lodgings. He devoted himself to his real interests - philology and translation. He was a leading figure in the London Philological Society and a very able linguist. It is said that when the SPCK wanted to have the New Testament translated into Iroquois, they approached him: he did not know the language, but learnt enough of it in a month to complete the task.

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