BAILEY, Sir Joseph (1783-1858), of 26 Belgrave Square, London and Glanusk Park, Crickhowell, Brec.

Born at Great Wenham Priory, Suffolk, Bailey came from an ancient Yorkshire family. In 1810 he inherited ‘a handsome fortune’ from his uncle, Richard Crawshay, of Cyfarthfa ironworks, Glamorgan, with whom he had been employed.1The Times, 24 Nov. 1858. Holding a quarter share of his uncle’s business (which he sold to his cousin in 1813 for £20,000) he purchased Nant-y-glo ironworks near Abergavenny in 1811 and, with his brother Crawshay Bailey, steadily expanded its operations, acquiring the neighbouring Beaufort works in 1833. Demonstrating outstanding business acumen, Bailey developed Nant-y-glo into one of the most important iron works in the world, supplying railway lines for the British and American markets.2‘Famous person of Blaenau Gwent: Sir Joseph Bailey, 1st Baronet’: www.bioeddie.co.uk/ebbw-vale/famousperson.php?recordID=90. Having become one of the wealthiest ironmasters in South Wales, he purchased Glanusk Park in 1826, thus acquiring a 20,000 acre estate in Brecknockshire, and Llangoed Castle in Radnorshire in 1846. He also owned smaller properties in Monmouthshire, Glamorgan, Herefordshire, Buckinghamshire and Suffolk.3Morning Post, 7 July 1846; Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 7 July 1852; J. Bateman, The Great Landowners of Great Britain (4th edn., 1883), 21.

Bailey retired from the personal direction of his business around 1830, and, having previously resisted several invitations to stand for parliament, came forward for Worcester in 1835. Although he had acquired a reputation for ruthlessness in dealing with industrial unrest at his ironworks, he was presented as a generous employer ‘who diffused his bounty among his own workmen’.4National Library of Wales: Welsh Biography Online, ‘Bailey, Sir Joseph (1783-1858)’; Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 7 Jan. 1835. Following serious rioting at Nant-y-glo in 1816, the Baileys built two fortified towers as protection against a potential worker’s revolt: Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust, ‘Roundhouse Farm, Nantyglo’: www.cpat.org.uk/projects/longer/nantyglo/nantyg.htm. Regarded by some as ‘a Conservative of moderate views’, others believed him ‘altogether as hearty a Conservative as the most ultra-Tory can wish’. Bailey, however, claimed to be ‘attached to no Party’, but was, nevertheless, ‘zealously devoted to the maintenance of the Constitution’. An adherent of Sir Robert Peel’s cautious reformism, he sought ‘an amelioration of all just grievances, and a reform of all proved abuses, paying at the same time a due regard to vested rights and property’. He was opposed to free trade for as long as foreign countries imposed duties on British goods, and favoured a revision of taxation to relieve the burden on ‘the industrious classes’. He was concerned that ‘the influence of the Church was not adequately distributed’ amongst the growing population, and favoured the commutation of tithes, but, as the patron of eight livings, ‘did not mean to undermine the Church under the pretence of searching for dry rot’.5Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 1, 8 Jan. 1835; Parliamentary Test Book (1835), 10. He narrowly defeated the sitting Liberal member, claiming not to have ‘spent a shilling’, and overcame a petition against his return.6Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 15 Jan., 12 Feb., 5 Mar., 16 Apr. 1835. He did, however, provide his committee with £50 to be ‘distributed solely for charitable purposes’: Ibid., 24 Dec. 1834.

In October 1835 Bailey opposed the municipal reform bill, which, he claimed, would have disenfranchised 800 freemen in Worcester and ‘about 80,000’ municipal electors in ‘the kingdom at large’, and supported Lord Francis Egerton’s unsuccessful amendment to the Irish municipal corporations bill, 8 Mar. 1836.7Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 15 Oct. 1835. In that year he also supported Lord Chandos’s motion for the relief of agricultural distress, the repeal of duties on soap, a revision of the pensions list, and Sir Andrew Agnew’s Sabbath observance bill, but opposed the Irish tithes bill, the ballot, and a reduction of duty on spirit licences.8Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 1 Sept. 1836. He was re-elected in 1837 having, according to his supporters, ‘discharged his duty in Parliament, not by making speeches for popularity, nor by taking up the time of the house for hour after hour without any effect but the delivery of the said speeches’. It was in the committee room, they argued, that a member ‘who served the real interests of the people and of trade was best known’, and it was here that ‘the services of Mr. Bailey were to be found’.9Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 27 July 1837. The only select committee on which Bailey appears to have served in this period was that on the question of privileges. He did participate in more routine work, such as the investigation of claims regarding the loss of the Vixen in 1838: PP 1837 (45) xiii. 203; Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 5 July 1838. Criticised for having voted in only 49 divisions since his return, Bailey insisted that he ‘had constantly attended one committee or other every morning’ where, he explained, ‘the major part of the business of the House was transacted’.10Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 27 July 1837. Claiming to have eschewed the practice of retarding business ‘by empty motions’ and ‘flummery and long speeches’ in support of ‘trumpery doctrines’, Bailey is not known to have exercised his own voice in the House.11Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 27 July 1837.

Bailey’s re-election for Worcester in 1837 was again unsuccessfully challenged on petition, and that year he funded the return of eldest son, Joseph Bailey, as MP for Sudbury. The two joined other members to dine with Sir Robert Peel, 16 May 1838.12Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 27 July 1837; 29 Mar., 24 May 1838. His son sat for Herefordshire from 1841 until his death in 1850, his brother Crawshay representing Monmouth Boroughs, 1852-68: Standard, 2 Feb. 1850. Bailey remained faithful to Peel at this time, pairing in opposition to the ministry on Canada, 7 Mar. 1838, voting against Irish tithe appropriation, 15 May, and pairing against the third reading of the Irish municipal reform bill in July. He did, however, comply with a request from the Liberals of Worcester to support Sir George Strickland’s motion to terminate slave apprenticeships, 30 Mar. 1838, but opposed the ministry over the government of Ireland, 19 Apr. 1839, the Jamaica government bill, 14 May, and the grant for public education, 24 June 1839.13Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 5 July, 29 Mar. 1838. He attended 32 of the 119 divisions of the 1841 session, during which he exerted himself on the Severn navigation bill, and was one of nine Welsh ironmasters to be elected at that year’s general election.14Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 6 May, 15 July 1841, quoting Bristol Mirror. His supporters asserted that he had been rewarded for ‘his independent conduct in parliament’, it being claimed that he belonged ‘to no party’.15Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 24 June, 1 July 1841. Bailey, however, as ‘one of the richest men in England, and the largest subscriber to the Carlton Club’, clearly adhered to Conservative principles.16Morning Chronicle, 22 Nov. 1839. He remained ‘a sincere member of the Church of England’, which he regarded as the ‘most effectual means of resisting Socialism’, and was a strong critic of the administration of the poor law. As both one of the largest manufacturers in the country and an extensive landed proprietor, Bailey regarded himself as ‘almost equally interested in the agricultural and commercial welfare of the country’. He continued to oppose ‘that one-sided reciprocity in trade’ which had, he believed, damaged Britain’s manufacturing interests, including Worcester’s glove trade.17Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 24 June 1841, and see ibid., 18 Dec. 1834. He defended the sliding scale of duty on corn and voted with Peel against a reduction in sugar duties, 18 May 1841, arguing that the proposed alteration would have revived ‘the slave trade in all its horrors’.18Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 24 June, 1 July 1841.

Bailey advocated ‘a judicious tax on property’, but supported Peel’s reintroduction of income tax, 13 Apr., 31 May 1842, voted in the minority to extend the maximum working day to 12 hours, 22 Mar. 1844, and opposed the second reading of the factories bill, 22 May 1846. Although he was a ‘firm Protectionist’, he again supported Peel over sugar duties, but broke with him to oppose the repeal of the corn laws.19The Times, 19 June 1844; Morning Post, 26 Jan. 1846. Abandoning Worcester, he was returned unopposed for Brecknockshire at the 1847 general election, where his local influence and opposition to free trade guaranteed him a secure seat. His ‘known attachment … to the pure Protestant principles of the Reformation’ ensured his opposition to the endowment of the Catholic clergy.20Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 12 Aug. 1847; Morning Chronicle, 24 Nov. 1858; Adams’s Parliamentary Handbook (3rd edn., 1854), 125. Although he was not present for the divisions on the Maynooth grant in 1845, he did support Spooner’s successful anti-Maynooth motion, 15 Apr. 1856. He attended only 24 of the 219 divisions in 1849, voting against the repeal of the navigation laws, 23 Apr. 1849.21Hampshire Telegraph, 20 Oct. 1849.

Since the early 1830s Bailey had been ‘engaged in the commercial and shipping interests of Liverpool’. He opposed the Liverpool docks bill in June 1836, and from 1848 invested in the development of Birkenhead Docks and was elected chairman of its trustees in December 1850.22Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 18 Dec. 1834, 1 Sept. 1836; Liverpool Mercury, 24 Dec. 1850, 31 May 1853. At Westminster he voted against Palmerston in the confidence vote (Don Pacifico), 28 June 1850, supported Disraeli’s motion for the relief of agricultural distress, 13 Feb. 1851, and opposed the county franchise bill, 2 Apr. 1851, being re-elected for Brecknockshire without opposition in 1852. Raised to the baronetcy by Lord Derby shortly afterwards, he continued to consistently support the Conservatives, voting for Disraeli’s budget, 16 Dec. 1852, and against that of Gladstone, 2 May 1853, in which session he attended 74 of the 257 divisions.23Standard, 30 June 1852; Daily News, 21 Sept. 1853. He voted against the removal of Jewish disabilities, 11 Mar. 1853, the abolition of church rates, 21 June 1854, 16 May 1855, and the removal of newspaper stamp duty, 26 Mar. 1855. Respecting foreign policy, he supported Roebuck’s motion for a select committee on the government’s conduct of the Crimean War, 29 Jan. 1855, and backed Cobden’s motion of censure on Canton, 3 Mar. 1857. Although he attended only 28 of the 198 divisions in 1856, he paired in favour of Disraeli’s motion to abolish the income tax by 1860, 23 Feb. 1857, and was returned unopposed again in 1857.24J.P. Gassiot & J.A. Roebuck, Third letter to J.A. Roebuck: with a full analysis of the divisions in the House of Commons during the last session of parliament (1857), 24. He bequeathed £10 per annum to each of the poor of Hay, Builth, Crickhowell, and Llangattock, and £20 to those of Brecon: W.R. Williams, The Parliamentary History of the Principality of Wales (1895), 20. He died in harness at his residence in November 1858, leaving an estate valued at £600,000.25Standard, 28 Feb. 1859. His eldest son, Joseph Bailey, MP for Sudbury, 1837-41, and Herefordshire, 1841-50, had predeceased him, and he was succeeded by his grandson Sir Joseph Russell Bailey (1840-1906), Conservative MP for Herefordshire (1865-85) and Hereford (1886-92), who was created 1^st baron Glanusk in 1899.26Standard, 23 Nov. 1858; Stenton and Lees, Who’s Who of British MPs, ii. 14. His daughter married the heir of Sir Charles Menteath of Closeburn Hall, Scotland: Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 24 Dec. 1846.