Bailey was born in 1783 in Great Wenham, Suffolk, the son of John Bailey, of Wakefield, and his wife Susannah. His parents had moved from Normanton, near Wakefield, in around 1780, by which time they had already had at least three children (Ann, Elizabeth and William). Joseph was the second child of a further five children to be born in Great Wenham (the others being an older sister, Susan, and three younger siblings, John, Thomas and Crawshay).
Bailey married, firstly, Maria Latham, daughter of Joseph Latham, in 1810. They had eight children, of which the eldest son, Joseph, served as an MP for Sudbury. Their daughter Jane married James Stuart Menteath, 2nd Baronet of Closeburn and Mansfield.[1]
In about 1826 he bought Glanusk Park and had a mansion house built there.
After his first wife's death in 1827 he married, secondly, Mary Anne Hopper, daughter of John Thomas Henry Hopper, in 1830. They had a daughter, Mary Anne Bertha, who married Alexander Young Spearman, son of Sir Alexander Spearman, 1st Baronet.
Death
Sir Joseph died in November 1858, aged 75. As his eldest son had predeceased him in 1850, he was succeeded in his title by a grandson, Joseph Russell Bailey, who in 1899 was elevated to the peerage as Baron Glanusk. Lady Bailey died in 1874.
