Major Richard Horace BAILY
1st Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment

Date of birth: 9th April 1890
Date of death: 3rd September 1956

Died aged 66
Unknown
Richard Horace Baily was born at Caterham on the 9th of April 1890 the third son of Edward Peter Baily, the future headmaster of Hazelwood School, and his wife, Ruth (nee Bourne) Baily of 12 Cardinal Mansion, Carlyle Place, Westminster in London.

Stone House School, Broadstairs; by 1903 he was attending the Royal Naval Academy, Northwood Park. He went on to the Royal Military College Sandhurst in 1908 and passed out in August 1909.

He was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the King’s Liverpool Regiment on the 6th of November 1909. He was promoted to Lieutenant on the 8th of June 1912 and went with his regiment to India.

He transferred to the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and was promoted to Captain on the 10th of June 1915. He embarked for service in France on the 1st of October 1915 where he joined the 1st Battalion of his regiment in the field. He was wounded in November 1915. On the 26th of June 1916 the battalion was in trenches at Auchonvillers on the Somme. At 4pm the enemy began a heavy shelling of the trenches with high explosive and gas shells. Richard Baily was evacuated to the rear with a bad case of gas poisoning. He was discharged from hospital on the 8th of July. Following a period of convalescence on the Isle of Wight he returned to duty. He was offered a commission in the Indian Army but refused it, preferring to stay with his old unit in France. He was promoted to Acting Major while in second in command of a battalion on the 14th of December 1917 and was serving in Italy in early 1918 from where he returned on leave and went on a two month staff course at Aldershot. He was mentioned in General Plumer’s despatches of the 18th of April 1918 and relinquished the rank of Acting Major on the 20th of September 1918.

On the 16th of March 1920 he was seconded for service in the Egyptian Army and served for a time in the Sudanese Civil Service, returning to rejoin his regiment on the 23rd of January 1926. In March 1929 he left for Inkermann Barracks and then returned to the Sudan. He then moved to Egypt where his battalion was commanded by Colonel Bernard Law Montgomery. He was promoted to Major on the 17th of January 1931, returned from Egypt in February 1932 and retired from the army on the 9th of March with the rank of Major.

OOn the outbreak of war in 1939 he joined the Brecknock Home Guard and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant (283447) on the 12th of January 1943.

In later life he lived with his parents at Beech Cottage, Limpsfield and at 114 Church Road, Hereford. He died at the Oxted and Limpsfield Hospital.
Went on to Stone House School

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