Frederick Markham Bailey
Encyclopedia
Lt. Colonel Frederick Marshman Bailey (3 February 1882 - 17 April 1967, Stiffkey, Norfolk) CIE
was a British intelligence officer and one of the last protagonists of The Great Game
- the fight for supremacy between the Russians and the British Empire along the Himalayas. His clandestine work gave him many opportunities to pursue his hobbies of butterfly collecting and trophy hunting
in the high Tibetan region. Over 2000 of his bird specimens were presented to The Natural History Museum
, although his personal collection is now held in the American Museum of Natural History
, New York.
Born in Lahore
on 3 February 1882, F.H.M. Bailey, was the son of an officer in the British Army
(who was also named Frederick, resulting in the younger Bailey usually being called just Eric). He studied at Edinburgh Academy
, Wellington and at Sandhurst
before returning to India
as a member of the 17th Bengal Lancers and from 1903 to 1905 with the 32nd Sikh Pioneers
. 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 later travelled in unknown parts of China
and Tibet, elected a Fellow of the Geographic Society in October 1906 (seconded by his father Colonel F Bailey who had joined the society in 1880) eventually earning the Gold Explorer's Meda
l from the Royal Geographical Society
for his discoveries. He also contributed notes on big-game to the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society
.
Bailey served on the western front
during World War I
, where he was shot in the arm. At the time he was serving in the Indian Expeditionary Forces as one of the few Urdu
-speaking officers on the front. When his wound continued to worsen, he returned to England, but later joined the fight again at Gallipoli
, where he was wounded twice more.
Having heard about rumours of a large waterfall, Bailey transferred himself from the Indian Army to the Political Department to get appointments on the Tibetan frontier. In 1911-12 he made an unauthorized exploration to the Tsangpo Gorges
with Captain Henry Morshead of the Survey of India . Morshead was later a surveyor for the 1921 Reconnaissance of Mount Everest along with George Mallory
. Their adventures led them to the Rong Chu valley a gorge on the upper Tsangpo. It was in this 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 got to Kintup's falls at the monastery of Pemakochung and were greatly disappointed to find the falls to be about thirty feet.
One of Bailey's more well-known adventures occurred in 1918, when he traveled to Tashkent
in Central Asia
on a mission to discover the intentions of the new Bolshevik
government, specifically in relation to India. During this mission he also shadowed Raja Mahendra Pratap
, an Indian nationalist who had established the Provisional Government of India
in Kabul in 1915. Pratap was at the time liaising with Germany and Bolshevik authorities for a joint Soviet-German assault into India through Afghanistan. It was at this time that the first plans for the Soviet Kalmyk Project
was first considered. Bailey eventually had to flee for his life from the city, and only escaped after taking on the guise of an Austrian POW and joining the Cheka
, with an assignment to find a rogue British agent - that is, himself. Upon his return to England, he was a national hero. Bailey later recorded his exploits in his book Mission to Tashkent. He was also instrumental in organising support for the Basmachi Revolt
.
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 fifty-mile 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
.
Order of the Indian Empire
The Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire is an order of chivalry founded by Queen Victoria in 1878. The Order includes members of three classes:#Knight Grand Commander #Knight Commander #Companion...
was a British intelligence officer and one of the last protagonists of The Great Game
The Great Game
The Great Game or Tournament of Shadows in Russia, were terms for the strategic rivalry and conflict between the British Empire and the Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running approximately from the Russo-Persian Treaty of 1813...
- the fight for supremacy between the Russians and the British Empire along the Himalayas. His clandestine work gave him many opportunities to pursue his hobbies of butterfly collecting and trophy hunting
Trophy hunting
Trophy hunting is the selective hunting of wild game animals. Although parts of the slain animal may be kept as a hunting trophy or memorial , the carcass itself is sometimes used as food....
in the high Tibetan region. Over 2000 of his bird specimens were presented to The Natural History Museum
Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum is one of three large museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, England . Its main frontage is on Cromwell Road...
, although his personal collection is now held in the American Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History , located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world...
, New York.
Born in Lahore
Lahore
Lahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...
on 3 February 1882, F.H.M. Bailey, was the son of an officer in the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
(who was also named Frederick, resulting in the younger Bailey usually being called just Eric). He studied at Edinburgh Academy
Edinburgh Academy
The Edinburgh Academy is an independent school which was opened in 1824. The original building, in Henderson Row on the northern fringe of the New Town of Edinburgh, Scotland, is now part of the Senior School...
, Wellington and at Sandhurst
Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst , commonly known simply as Sandhurst, is a British Army officer initial training centre located in Sandhurst, Berkshire, England...
before returning to India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
as a member of the 17th Bengal Lancers and from 1903 to 1905 with the 32nd Sikh Pioneers
32nd Sikh Pioneers
The 32nd Sikh Pioneers were a regiment of the Indian Army during British rule. The regiment was founded in 1857 as the Punjab Sappers ....
. During a mission in Sikhim he began to study Tibetan
Tibetan language
The Tibetan languages are a cluster of mutually-unintelligible Tibeto-Burman languages spoken primarily by Tibetan peoples who live across a wide area of eastern Central Asia bordering the Indian subcontinent, including the Tibetan Plateau and the northern Indian subcontinent in Baltistan, Ladakh,...
, and became so proficient that he accompanied Francis Younghusband
Francis Younghusband
Lieutenant Colonel Sir Francis Edward Younghusband, KCSI, KCIE was a British Army officer, explorer, and spiritual writer...
in his 1904 invasion of Tibet
British expedition to Tibet
The British expedition to Tibet during 1903 and 1904 was an invasion of Tibet by British Indian forces, whose mission was to establish diplomatic relations and trade between the British Raj and Tibet...
.
He later travelled in unknown parts of China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
and Tibet, elected a Fellow of the Geographic Society in October 1906 (seconded by his father Colonel F Bailey who had joined the society in 1880) eventually earning the Gold Explorer's Meda
Gold Medal (RGS)
The Gold Medal are the most prestigious of the awards presented by the Royal Geographical Society. The Gold Medal is not one award but consists of two separate awards; the Founder's Medal 1830 and the Patron's Medal 1838. The award is given for "the encouragement and promotion of geographical...
l from the Royal Geographical Society
Royal Geographical Society
The Royal Geographical Society is a British learned society founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical sciences...
for his discoveries. He also contributed notes on big-game to the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society
Bombay Natural History Society
The Bombay Natural History Society, founded on 15 September 1883, is one of the largest non-governmental organizations in India engaged in conservation and biodiversity research. It supports many research efforts through grants, and publishes the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. Many...
.
Bailey served on the western front
Western Front (World War I)
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...
during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, where he was shot in the arm. At the time he was serving in the Indian Expeditionary Forces as one of the few Urdu
Urdu
Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...
-speaking officers on the front. When his wound continued to worsen, he returned to England, but later joined the fight again at Gallipoli
Battle of Gallipoli
The Gallipoli Campaign, also known as the Dardanelles Campaign or the Battle of Gallipoli, took place at the peninsula of Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire between 25 April 1915 and 9 January 1916, during the First World War...
, where he was wounded twice more.
Having heard about rumours of a large waterfall, Bailey transferred himself from the Indian Army to the Political Department to get appointments on the Tibetan frontier. In 1911-12 he made an unauthorized exploration to the Tsangpo Gorges
Yarlung Tsangpo Canyon
The Yarlung Zangbo Grand Canyon or simply the Tsangpo Canyon or Tsangpo Gorge, along the Yarlung Tsangpo River in Tibet, China, is regarded by some as the deepest canyon in the world, and is slightly longer than the Grand Canyon, making it one of the world's largest...
with Captain Henry Morshead of the Survey of India . Morshead was later a surveyor for the 1921 Reconnaissance of Mount Everest along with George Mallory
George Mallory
George Herbert Leigh Mallory was an English mountaineer who took part in the first three British expeditions to Mount Everest in the early 1920s....
. Their adventures led them to the Rong Chu valley a gorge on the upper Tsangpo. It was in this 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 got to Kintup's falls at the monastery of Pemakochung and were greatly disappointed to find the falls to be about thirty feet.
One of Bailey's more well-known adventures occurred in 1918, when he traveled to Tashkent
Tashkent
Tashkent is the capital of Uzbekistan and of the Tashkent Province. The officially registered population of the city in 2008 was about 2.2 million. Unofficial sources estimate the actual population may be as much as 4.45 million.-Early Islamic History:...
in Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
on a mission to discover the intentions of the new Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
government, specifically in relation to India. During this mission he also shadowed Raja Mahendra Pratap
Raja Mahendra Pratap
Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh was a freedom fighter, journalist, writer and revolutionary social reformist of India. He was popularly known as the Aryan Peshwa. He was born in Thenua gotra Jat Hindu princely family of state of Mursan in Hathras District of Uttar Pradesh on 1 December 1886. He was...
, an Indian nationalist who had established the Provisional Government of India
Provisional Government of India
Provisional Government of India was a provisional government-in-exile established by Indian Nationalists in Afghanistan during World War I with support from the Central Powers. Its purpose was to enroll support from both the Afghan Emir, as well as Tsarist Russia, China and Japan for the Indian...
in Kabul in 1915. Pratap was at the time liaising with Germany and Bolshevik authorities for a joint Soviet-German assault into India through Afghanistan. It was at this time that the first plans for the Soviet Kalmyk Project
Kalmyk Project
The Kalmyk Project was the name given to Soviet plans to launch a surprise attack on the northwest frontier of India via Tibet and other Himalayan buffer states in 1919-1920. It was a part of Soviet plans for destabilising Britain and the Western European powers through unrest in the Colonial...
was first considered. Bailey eventually had to flee for his life from the city, and only escaped after taking on the guise of an Austrian POW and joining the Cheka
Cheka
Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by aristocrat-turned-communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
, with an assignment to find a rogue British agent - that is, himself. Upon his return to England, he was a national hero. Bailey later recorded his exploits in his book Mission to Tashkent. He was also instrumental in organising support for the Basmachi Revolt
Basmachi Revolt
The Basmachi movement or Basmachi Revolt was an uprising against Russian Imperial and Soviet rule by the Muslim, largely Turkic peoples of Central Asia....
.
He helped Frank Kingdon-Ward
Frank Kingdon-Ward
Francis Kingdon-Ward, born Francis Kingdon Ward was an English botanist, explorer, plant collector and author. He published most of his books as Frank Kingdon-Ward and this hyphenated form of his name stuck, becoming the surname of his wives and two daughters...
and Lord Cawdor in 1924 when he was a Political Officer
Political officer (British Empire)
In the British Empire, a Political officer or Political Agent was an officer of the imperial Civil Administration , as opposed to the Military administration , usually operating outside imperial territory from a base outside or inside imperial territory...
in Gangtok, Sikkim. Bailey arranged passports and encouraged them to search the fifty-mile 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
Lhasa Apso
The Lhasa Apso is a non-sporting dog breed originating in Tibet. It was bred as an interior sentinel in the Buddhist monasteries, who alerted the monks to any intruders who entered...
breed of dog into Britain. He was in contact with others interested in Central Asia including Richard Meinertzhagen
Richard Meinertzhagen
Colonel Richard Henry Meinertzhagen CBE DSO was a British soldier, intelligence officer and ornithologist.- Background and youth :Meinertzhagen was born into a socially connected, wealthy British family...
.
Further reading
- Anon. Obituary. Ibis 1967:615-616
- Bailey, F. M. China, Tibet, Assam (London: Cape, 1945).(1946, republished 1992 and 2002).
- Bailey, F. M. No Passport To Tibet (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1957)
- Brysac, Shareen Blair and Karl E. Meyer. Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia. (Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint Press, 1999).
- Cocker, Mark. Loneliness and time: the story of British travel writing. (London: Secker & Warburg, 1992).
- Hopkirk, Peter. Setting the East Ablaze: Lenin's Dream of an Empire in Asia. (London: Kodansha International, 1984).
- Swinson, Arthur. Beyond the Frontiers. The Biography of Colonel F.M.Bailey Explorer and Special Agent (London: Hutchinson of London, 1971)