Self-taught sculptor John Bailey exhibited in London at the Royal Academy (1851-61), Society of British Artists (1853-54) and Royal Panopticon of Science and Art (1856). He lived in Conduit Place, Paddington. He made a bust of Louis Kossuth, Governor of Hungary, and cast a death mask of Sir James Parker (both 1852). In 1853 he made a monument for Colonel Warren Firth and his wife (Nursling, Hampshire). By the time his 1853 bust of Queen Victoria (untraced) was exhibited he was considered a promising young artist. However, he received no commissions from 1852-54 and his mother lived in a workhouse. In 1856 John and his brother were charged with refusing to support her. He was still working in the mid-1860s but exhibited no works after 1861.
