Career
Bailey joined the Royal Navy as a cadet in the training ship HMS Britannia in 1896. He took part in the Seymour Expedition for the relief of Peking in 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion and then served in World War I on the staff of the Commander-in-Chief, Grand Fleet seeing action at the Battle of Jutland in May 1916. He became naval attaché in Washington, District of Columbia He went on to be Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff in 1933, Commander of the Battlecruiser Squadron in 1934 and President of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich in 1937 before retiring in 1939.