Born at Cole Henley Manor, Whitchurch on the Test, Hants, the village where banknote paper is manufactured. He was the second son of Joseph Latham Bailey, gentleman farmer, and his wife Martha Palmer of Lambourn, Kent. Educated at Cranford College, Maidenhead, he entered St Bartholomew's Hospital in October 1885 and won the Brackenbury surgical scholarship in 1890. He served as house surgeon to Alfred Willett, FRCS and W J Walsham, FRCS for a year from October 1891, was elected assistant surgeon to the hospital in 1903, became full surgeon in January 1913, and resigned in 1919 when he was made a governor and consulting surgeon. In the medical school he was assistant demonstrator of anatomy 1894-97, and was subsequently a teacher of operative surgery. From 1896 to 1903 he was assistant surgeon to the Metropolitan Hospital in the Kingsland Road. At the University of London he gained honours in medicine at the MS examination. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was awarded the Jacksonian prize in 1896 for his essay on "The pathology, diagnosis, and treatment of disease of the prostate gland". In 1908 he joined the territorial force with the rank of captain *à la suite*, and on the outbreak of war in 1914 was promoted major and served at the first London general hospital. His early retirement from all professional work in 1919 was due to ill-health, which took the form of mental depression associated with an increasing lack of interest in things pertaining to life, though he remained physically well. He retired to Hazelwood, East Cowes, Isle of Wight, where he spent the rest of his life, attended by his two nieces and looked after by those who had been his former pupils. He died unmarried on 18 March 1938. He left £100 to St Bartholomew's Hospital. Bailey was a very dexterous operator and a fine teacher of medical students. In the company of his house surgeons and dressers he was always direct and to the point. He excelled in bringing out the practical aspect of any matter under discussion. Something clear and definite invariably sank into the minds of those who attended his demonstrations and were taught by him in the wards and in the operative surgery classes. He was kindly and sympathetic to the individual needs of the student, and his former work in the dissecting rooms gave an anatomical background to his surgical teaching, which proved most helpful to pupils after they had gone into practice. Some of his obiter dicta are preserved under the title "What I always say is" in the *St Bartholomew's Hospital Journal*, 1937, pp 125, 147, 165 and 188. With his composed manner, sprucely dressed square figure, abundant locks and moustache, and unfailing smile, Bailey was a familiar personality in the hospital square and his resignation long before reaching the age limit deprived the hospital of St Bartholomew of a very able surgeon.