Frederick Marshman Bailey (3 February 1882 – 17 April 1967) was a British political officer and one of the last protagonists of '' The Great Game.'' His expeditions in

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...

and Assam Himalaya gave him many opportunities to pursue his hobbies of

photography Photography is the visual arts, art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is empl ...

, butterfly collecting and

trophy hunting Trophy hunting is a form of hunting for field sports, sport in which parts of the hunted wild animals are kept and displayed as trophies. The animal being targeted, known as the "game (hunting), game", is typically a mature male specimen from a p ...

in the high Tibetan region. Over 2000 of his bird specimens were presented to the

Natural History Museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history scientific collection, collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, Fungus, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleo ...

, although his personal collection is now held in the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 21 interconn ...

, New York.Anon. (1967) Obituary: Lt.-Col. F. M. Bailey, C. I. E. 1882-1967. The Geographical Journal 133: 427-428. His papers and extensive photograph collections are held in the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

, London.

Early life

Born in

Lahore Lahore ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, Pakistani province of Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab. It is the List of cities in Pakistan by population, second-largest city in Pakistan, after Karachi, and ...

, India on 3 February 1882, Bailey was the son of Lt Col Frederick Bailey of the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is the engineering arm of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces ...

of the

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

, Head of the Indian Forestry Service, and his wife, Florence Agnes Marshman. The younger Bailey was usually called "Eric". His family returned to Britain in 1890 and they lived at 7 Drummond Place in Edinburgh's Second New Town. He was educated nearby at Edinburgh Academy. He later studied at Wellington College (1895-1899) and the

Royal Military College, Sandhurst The Royal Military College (RMC) was a United Kingdom, British military academy for training infantry and cavalry Officer (armed forces), officers of the British Army, British and British Indian Army, Indian Armies. It was founded in 1801 at Gre ...

, from where he was commissioned onto the Unattached List of the

Indian Army The Indian Army (IA) (ISO 15919, ISO: ) is the Land warfare, land-based branch and largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Commander-in-Chief, Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head ...

on 28 July 1900. He was admitted to the Indian Army on 26 October 1901 and was attached to the 17th Bengal Lancers. He was promoted to lieutenant on 28 October 1902 and transferred to the 32nd Sikh Pioneers on 1 March 1903. He obtained a transfer to the Foreign and Political Department on 24 January 1906. During a mission in Sikhim, he began to study Tibetan and became so proficient that he accompanied Francis Younghusband in his 1904 invasion of Tibet. He then served as the British Trade Agent in Gyantse (Tibet) at intervals between December 1905 and December 1909.

Explorer

1913 North-Eastern Frontier and Tibet by Morshead and Bailey from RE Journal 1921

He later travelled in unknown parts of

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

and Tibet, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in October 1906 (seconded by his father, Colonel F Bailey, who had joined the society in 1880) and eventually earned the Patron's Medal from the

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

for his discoveries. He also contributed notes on big game to the Journal of the

Bombay Natural History Society The Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), founded on 15 September 1883, is one of the largest non-governmental organisations in India engaged in conservation and biodiversity research. It supports many research efforts through grants and publ ...

. He was promoted Captain 28 July 1908 and served during the operations in the Abor Country from 1911 to 1912. Bailey transferred himself from the Indian Army to the Political Department to get appointments on the Tibetan frontier. In 1911, he crossed China and southern Tibet to Assam in a failed attempt to reach the 150 ft falls on the Yarlung Tsangpo, which had been reported by the Indian

pundit A pundit is a person who offers opinion in an authoritative manner on a particular subject area (typically politics, the social sciences, technology or sport), usually through the mass media. The term pundit describes both women and men, altho ...

Kinthup Kinthup, a Lepcha people, Lepcha man from Sikkim, was an explorer in the area of Tibet in the 1880s. He is best known for his impressive devotion to duty in surveying a previously unknown area of Tibet. Laurence Waddell, who met Kinthup in 1892, ...

. In 1913 he made an unauthorised exploration to the Tsangpo Gorges with Captain

Henry Morshead Henry Treise Morshead (23 November 1882 – 17 May 1931) was an English surveyor, explorer and mountaineer. He is remembered for several achievements – with Frederick Marshman Bailey, Frederick Bailey he explored the Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Ca ...

of the

Survey of India The Survey of India is India's central engineering agency in charge of mapping and surveying.1921 British Mount Everest reconnaissance expedition, along with

George Mallory George Herbert Leigh-Mallory (18 June 1886 – 8 or 9 June 1924) was an English Mountaineering, mountaineer who participated in the first three British Mount Everest expeditions from the early to mid-1920s. He and climbing partner An ...

. Their adventures led them to the Rong Chu Valley, a gorge on the Upper Tsangpo. It was in that valley that Bailey spotted a tall blue poppy at the margin of the forest and pressed it in his notebook, now called '' Meconopsis baileyi''. They reached Kintup's Falls at the monastery of Pemakochung and were greatly disappointed to find the falls to be about 30 ft. In 1914, Bailey was honoured with the MacGregor Medal for "recces and surveys (with Capt. T.M. Morshead) and separately, Tsangpo valley, Dihang & Dibang valleys,1911- 12."

First World War

On 4 September 1914 Bailey was appointed as a captain with the 6th Reserve Regiment of Cavalry at Dublin. He served on the Western Front in March to April 1915 with the 34th Sikh Pioneers, and he was shot in the arm. He was serving in the Indian Expeditionary Forces as one of the few

Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...

-speaking officers on the front. When his wound continued to worsen, he returned to England, but he later joined the fight again at the Battle of Gallipoli in September 1915. He served with the 5th Gurkhas, and he was wounded twice more. He was appointed a Companion of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire on 1 January 1915 and was transferred to the Supernumerary List on 24 December 1915. He was sent back to India, where he served as Political Officer on the North-West Frontier during the Mohmand Operations January 1916 to March 1917. In December 1917, he was sent to South Persia, where he served until February 1918 as a political officer and was then in Chinese and Russian Turkistan from 1918 to 1920. He was a temporary lieutenant-colonel from 1 April 1918 to 30 May 1920.

Mission to Tashkent

One of Bailey's more well-known adventures occurred in 1918, when he travelled to

Tashkent Tashkent (), also known as Toshkent, is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uzbekistan, largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of more than 3 million people as of April 1, 2024. I ...

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

on a mission to discover the intentions of the new

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

government, specifically in relation to India. During the mission, he also shadowed Raja Mahendra Pratap, an Indian nationalist who had established the Provisional Government of India in Kabul in 1915. Pratap was liaising with Germany and Bolshevik authorities for a joint Soviet-German assault into India through Afghanistan. It was then that the first plans for the Soviet '' Kalmyk Project'' was first considered. Bailey eventually had to flee for his life from the city and escaped only by taking on the guise of an Austrian prisoner-of-war and joining the

Cheka The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə, links=yes), ...

with an assignment to find a rogue British agent, himself. Upon his return to England, he was a national hero. Bailey later recorded his exploits in his book '' Mission to Tashkent''.

Later life

In 1921 Bailey married Irma Hepburn, daughter of Baron Cozens-Hardy. He was the Political Officer for Sikkim and Tibet, stationed in Gangtok (Sikkim) from June 1921 to October 1928, and he made annual visits to Tibet to inspect the Gyantse Trade Agency and visited Lhasa from 16 July to 16 August 1924, accompanied by the Medical Officer, Major J. Hislop IMS. He helped Frank Kingdon-Ward and Lord Cawdor in 1924 when he was a Political Officer in Gangtok, Sikkim. Bailey arranged passports and encouraged them to search the 40 mi unexplored gap of the river to solve the ''riddles of the Tsangpo Gorges''. Kingdon-Ward wrote a book by the same name documenting that expedition. He was among the earliest to import the Lhasa Apso breed of dog into Britain. He was in contact with others interested in Central Asia, including

Richard Meinertzhagen Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen, CBE, DSO (3 March 1878 – 17 June 1967) was a British soldier, intelligence officer, and ornithologist. He had a decorated military career spanning Africa and the Middle East. He was credited with creating an ...

. He was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel 28 July 1926. He was the Resident at Baroda, Central India from 1930 to 32 and was the Resident in Kashmir in 1932 to 1933. In February 1935, he was appointed His Majesty's

Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary An envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary, usually known as a minister, was a diplomatic head of mission who was ranked below ambassador. A diplomatic mission headed by an envoy was known as a legation rather than an embassy. Under the ...

at Kathmandu. He held this appointment until retiring in 1938. He retired from the Indian Army on 3 February 1937 and, during the Second World War, served as a King's Messenger to Central and South America between 1942 and 1943. Bailey died on April 17, 1967.

Works

*Bailey, F. M. "From the outposts: A quiet day in Tibet", in: '' Blackwood's Magazine'', 181;1144:270-5 * *Bailey, F. M.
China-Tibet-Assam: A Journey, 1911
' (London: Cape, 1945) * *Bailey, F. M.
No Passport to Tibet
' (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1957)

Legacy

Bailey is commemorated in the scientific names of three species: a Tibetan snake ('' Thermophis baileyi''); a species of mammal, the red goral ('' Naemorhedus baileyi'');Pocock R. I. (1914) Description of a new species of goral (''Naemorhedus'') shot by Captain F. M. Bailey. and the renowned Himalayan blue poppy ('' Meconopsis baileyi'').

References

External links

* *
Bailey, Frederick Marshman, (1882-1967), Lieutenant Colonel, Lepidopterist
at

National Archives National archives are the archives of a country. The concept evolved in various nations at the dawn of modernity based on the impact of nationalism upon bureaucratic processes of paperwork retention. Conceptual development From the Middle Ages i ...

Memorial plaque at Wiveton church

L. A. Bethell letters to F. M. Bailey
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bailey, Frederick Markham 1882 births 1967 deaths 20th-century British zoologists Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to Nepal British Indian Army officers British military personnel of the British expedition to Tibet British spies against the Soviet Union Companions of the Order of the Indian Empire English lepidopterists Explorers of the Himalayas Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society Graduates of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst Indian Army personnel of World War I Military personnel from Edinburgh People educated at Edinburgh Academy Recipients of the MacGregor Medal Explorers of Tibet Explorers of South Asia