BAILEY, Sir Joseph Russell, 2nd bt. (1840-1906), of Glanusk Park, Crickhowell, Breconshire

Bailey’s grandfather, Sir Joseph Bailey (1783-1858), 1st baronet, and his brother Crawshay Bailey (1789-1872), were immensely rich ironmasters who made their fortune through the Nant-y-glo ironworks in South Wales. Sir Joseph was Conservative MP for Worcester, 1835-47, and Breconshire, 1850-8, while Crawshay represented Monmouth boroughs, 1852-68. When Sir Joseph Bailey’s son Joseph Bailey junior (1812-50), Conservative MP for Sudbury, 1837-41, Herefordshire, 1841-50, predeceased him, he was succeeded by his grandson, Joseph Russell Bailey as 2nd baronet in 1858. His grandfather’s personal estate was sworn under £600,000, and Bailey inherited 20,000 acres in Brecknockshire, including the family seat at Glanusk Park, and 4,800 acres in Herefordshire.1J. Bateman, The great landowners of Great Britain and Ireland, ed. D. Spring (1971), 21; F. M. L. Thompson, ‘Life after death: how successful nineteenth-century businessmen disposed of their fortunes’, Economic History Review, 43 (1990), 59.

Bailey came forward as a Conservative for his father’s old constituency, Herefordshire, at the 1865 general election and was returned unopposed after declaring his support for a reduction, and when practicable, the abolition of the malt duty.2Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 1 July 1865; The Times, 20 July 1865. He put his principles into practice by backing the motion for the reduction of malt tax, 17 Apr. 1866. In the divisions on the Liberal government’s reform bill he voted with the Conservatives and dissident Liberals in favour of Grosvenor’s amendment for a parallel redistribution and Dunkellin’s proposal for a rateable rather than rental franchise, 27 Apr., 18 June 1866. During the debates on the 1867 representation of the people bill, Bailey took a Conservative line, opposing the enfranchisement of compounders and increasing the representation of the largest towns at the expense of the smaller boroughs in the division lobbies. He voted against Gladstone’s Irish church resolutions, 3 Apr. 1868.

Bailey became a more regular speaker after 1868 and represented Herefordshire until the 1885 general election, when he offered for the newly created southern division of the county, but was defeated. He was, however, returned for Hereford city at the general election the following year and retired at the 1892 dissolution. As a parliamentarian Bailey ‘did not obtrude himself on the notice of the House by making many speeches, [but] did a great deal of useful public work as a member of committees’. He was really ‘fond of administrative work as opposed to party politics’, particularly in Brecon, which he served as high sheriff (1864), chairman of the quarter sessions (1883-1900), a county councillor after 1889 and lord lieutenant from 1875 until his death from tuberculosis in 1906.3The Times, 8 Jan. 1906. Created 1st Baron Glanusk in 1899, Bailey’s titles and estates, including a personalty of £104,552, passed to his first son Joseph Henry Russell Bailey (1864-1928), 2nd Baron, who also succeeded his father as lord lieutenant.4Burke’s peerage (1949), 828-9; National Probate Calendar, 15 Mar. 1906.