Robert Slater Bayley (c.180014 November 1859)[1] was an English independent minister.
Bayley was educated at Highbury Theological College, and on quitting that institution was appointed to a pastorate at Louth, Lincolnshire. After some years of labour at that place, he moved (1835) to Sheffield to take charge of the Howard Street congregation, where he remained for about ten years. While there he exerted himself actively in the establishment of an educational institution called the People's College, where he was also in the habit of lecturing on a variety of subjects. Here also in 1846 he started a monthly periodical called the People's College Journal. It was printed at the college, and intended to advance the interests of popular education. It came to an untimely end in May of the following year.
The next scene of Bayley's labours was the Ratcliff Highway, London, which he left in about 1857 for Hereford, where he remained until his death from apoplexy on 14 November 1859.