Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Bailey, John Eglington

1413787Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement, Volume 1 — Bailey, John Eglington1901John Goldworth Alger

BAILEY, JOHN EGLINGTON (1840–1888), antiquary, born at Edgbaston, Birmingham, on 13 Feb. 1840, was the son of Charles Bailey, by his wife Mary Elizabeth, daughter of John Eglington of Ashbourne. His parents removed during his childhood to Lancashire. Educated at Boteler's grammar school, Warrington, he entered in his teens the counting-house of Ralli Brothers, Manchester, and continued there till 1886. He completed his education by attending evening classes at Owens College, learned Pitman's shorthand, and contributed articles to short-hand manuscript or lithographed magazines. He very early interested himself in Thomas Fuller (1608–1661) [q. v.], delivered a lecture on him to the Manchester Phonographic Union, which was printed in Henry Pitman's 'Popular Lecturer,' and devoted his holidays to visiting Fuller's various places of residence. In 1874, as the fruit of long researches, Bailey published a life of Fuller, which gained him admission into the Society of Antiquaries, He also became honorary secretary to the Chetham Society, Manchester, and he was a contributor to the earliest volumes of the 'Dictionary of National Biography.' In 1881 he started a monthly antiquarian magazine, the 'Palatine Note-Book,' which ran for just over four years and ceased with the forty-ninth number in 1885. He collected many works on stenography with a view to writing a history of that art, and he possessed a valuable library of antiquarian and general literature. In 1886 illness put an end to his studies and projects. He died at Manchester on 23 Aug. 1888, and was buried at Stretford church on 27 Aug. His collection of Fuller's sermons, completed and edited by Mr. W. E. A. Axon, was published in 1891.

His other works, irrespective of contributions to the Chetham Society, include: 1. 'Life of a Lancashire Rector during the Civil War,' 1877. 2. 'The Grammar School of Leigh,' 1879. 3. 'John Whitaker,' 1879. 4. 'John Dee and the Steganographia of Trithemius,' 1879. He edited reprints of 'Manchester Al Mondo,' 1880; Dee's 'Diary,' 1880; and John Byrom's ' Journal,' 1882.

[Personal knowledge; Academy, 8 Sept. 1888; Manchester Quarterly, October 1888; Manchester Guardian, 24 Aug. 1888; A List of the Writings of John Eglington Bailey, by Ernest Axon, 1889; Notes and Queries, 7th ser. vi. 180; H. Brierley's Morgan Brierley, 1900.]

J. G. A.