He was born around 1842 the son of Catherine Irvine and her husband, Charles Bailey (1803–1865), the son of Charles Bailey, twice Mayor of Bedford.
He was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1859. In 1871 he joined the Indian Forest Service and became Head of this service and Inspector General of Forests in India, succeeding Hugh Cleghorn in this task. In this service he was based in Lahore. In 1878 he established the First Indian Forestry School at Dehra Dun and served as its first director. In 1890 he returned to UK and lectured on a newly created course on Forestry at the University of Edinburgh from 1890 to 1907.[1]
