Robert Neale Menteth Bailey was born on 22 August 1882 in Coates, Gloucestershire, the son of Henry Bailey (1822-1889) and his second wife Christina Bailey née Thomson (1849-1896). His birth was registered in the 3rd quarter of 1882 in the Cirencester Registration District, Gloucestershire. His father had been a gentleman farmer of 80 acres and a Justice of the Peace for Brecknockshire, Wales.
In the 1891 census he was shown as aged 8 years and a scholar, living in Coates Lodge, Coates, Gloucestershire with his widowed mother and his two sisters: Helen Christina Bailey (1884-1962) and Margaret Doreen Bailey (1887-1952), together with a governess, a cook, a parlour maid, a nurse and two other female domestic servants.
He was listed in the 1901 census as an 18-year-old student and one of 68 boarders residing in The Chambers, Eton College, Eton, Buckinghamshire (now Berkshire), the home of his schoolmaster, Arthur Murray Goodhart.
Having attended Eton College he went to Magdalen College at Oxford University and gives much information about this man and his family.
When he completed his 1911 census return form he showed himself as aged 28 years and a clerk in the House of Commons, residing in a seven roomed property call Ewen House, Cirencester, together with a married couple who were his domestic servants and their 2-year-old daughter. On the night of the census he was entertaining a visitor, Ralph Charles Fairbairn Cotton (1883-1918).
On the outbreak of World War One he obtained a commission as a Second Lieutenant in the East Riding of Yorkshire Yeomanry, a Territorial Force regiment and entered the Egyptian theatre of war on 10 November 1915. He was later promoted to Lieutenant and from the we learn that 'On 14 November 1917 his unit were called into action in Naan, north of Junction Station. As his men advanced forward, they were subject to heavy gun fire. Bailey ordered his soldiers to hold their position and in the fighting that ensued he was hit by a bullet in the head. He was evacuated to Cairo hospital and initially made good progress. However, his condition deteriorated and he died from his wounds two weeks later on the 1 December 1917', aged 35 years. His , in the Cairo War War Memorial Cemetery, Abd El Salam Nasr, Al Kafour, Old Cairo, Cairo Governorate 4244123, Egypt.
On 10 May 1918 his army effects totalling £188-12s-7d were sent to George Crompton Lees-Milne, the husband of his sister, Helen Christina Bailey. His £6-0s-0d war gratuity was also sent to George Crompton Lees-Milne on 17 December 1919. He was posthumously awarded the 1914-1915 Star, the British War Medal 1914-1918 and the Victory Medal.
He is shown as 'ROBT. N. MENTETH BAILEY' on the Lincoln's Inn war memorial at New Square, London, WC2 and as 'Robert Neale Menteth Bailey, Lieut. East Riding of Yorks. Yeomanry' inside the St John the Baptist Church, Wickhamford, Evesham, Worcestershire. He is also listed on the war memorials at Magdalen College and Eton College. He is also commemorated on the , on the , on the , on the , in the .
Credit for this entry to: Andrew Behan.
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