third of ten children of Thomas Baker, headmaster of the Lancasterian School, Birmingham, and his wife, Charlotte Mould. Several of the children attained unusual distinction. In addition to Franklin Baker, they included Charles Baker, famous as an instructor of deaf people; Sir Thomas Baker (1810–1886), Unitarian minister at Sidmouth in 1833–4 and later a solicitor in Manchester where he was active in municipal affairs, mayor, and historian of the Unitarian congregation of Cross Street Chapel; Alfred Baker (1815–1893), an eminent Birmingham surgeon; and Harriet (1805–1850), who married Edward White Benson (1800–1843) and became mother of a second Edward White Benson (1829–1896), archbishop of Canterbury in 1882–96. On 30 September 1835 Baker had married Mary Crook (1802–1879), daughter of Jeremiah Crook, a Liverpool merchant formerly of Bolton, another of whose daughters married Baker's brother Thomas; there were no children. References Attribution 1800 births 1867 deaths 19th-century Unitarian clergy English Unitarian ministers People from Birmingham, West Midlands Alumni of the University of Glasgow English encyclopedists