Born in Sheffield, Yorks, author and eminent Minister in the Presbyterian denomination.  He was the son of  another Joshua Bayes (c.1638-1703), who one source says was Master Cutler at Sheffield in 1671.  In 1686 he studied theology under Mr. Frankland at Attercliffe (Sheffield) and was ordained in 1694 and became the minister at Box Lane, Bovington, Hertfordshire until 1706.  He then became assistant at the Presbyterian Meeting House, St. Thomas Church, Southwark (London) until 1723 when he became Pastor at Leather Lane in London's Hatton Garden, in which post he continued until his death in 1746.

    He was married to Anne Carpenter (1673-1733) and they had 7 children, 4 boys and 3 girls:

Bayes' paper, (published posthumously in 1763), called 'An Essay Towards Solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances' is the basis of Bayesian Probability, which is greatly used in computational mathematics today.  You will see many, many references to Bayes Theory on the Internet.  His work is becoming more and more important.

* I am indebted to Darren Izzard who took the plaque photo and was kind enough to let me use it on this web page.

In a recent artical in the Telegraph Magazine by Andrew Anthony, about Bayesian software entrepreneur Mike Lynch, it says:

    "Bayes came up with a means of calculating the probability of a future event occurring based on previous events, current conditions and all other known and related factors.  In other words, he devised a formula for that most unconcious of skills:  human intuition."

   Thomas Bayes died unmarried and is buried with other members of his family at Bunhill Fields Burial Ground, Moorgate, London, (156 in Section 12).  See photo, left, of the tomb which I took on 10th December 2007.

   I can recommend an excellent biographical article by J.D.Holland in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 1962, pp.451-461.

I have recently discovered a better and more informative biography, (a pdf file), by D.R.Bellhouse

  See also....
   and also....  

    In Volume 3, page 302 of the Worcestershire Victoria County History, (under Bevere, a hamlet a few miles north of the City of Worcester), I came across a mention of Samuel, Anne and Rebecca, (see para 1.1).

     "(In c.1769) Samuel Bayes and his wife Theodosia with James [sic] Cotton and his wife Rebecca conveyed a rent from Bevere Manor to Anne West, a widow."

   Anne West and Rebecca Cotton were Samuel's sisters.  Anne's husband, Thomas West, died in 1756.  (See below, para 1.4).

I am indebted to Clare Ash, who found most of this tree data in a book called Familiae Minorum Gentium which appears to relate to Sheffield worthies.  It shows the descendants of Hugh Bayes, the Rev. Thomas Bayes' Great-Great-Grandfather.
I have made this into a Gedcom file called Bayesians.