Barnes, William,1801–86, English poet and philologist. After a career as a schoolmaster, he took holy orders in 1847. He is best known for his poems in Dorset dialect, which began to appear in local newspapers in 1833. His Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect were published in three series between 1844 and 1862. Besides a Philological Grammar (1854), he wrote other books on the English language.
