Edward Hodges Baily was born in Bristol, England on 10 March 1788 and was the son of William Hillier Baily (1763–1834), a ship's carver. After working in a merchant's counting house from c.1802 to 1804, he embarked on a career as a modeller of small wax busts. He soon progressed to working in clay. In 1807 he was accepted as a pupil by John Flaxman (1755-1826) with whom he remained for seven and a half years. In 1809, while stile a pupil of Flaxman, he was admitted a student at the Royal Academy Schools in London, entering the Schools on 8 March 1809. He subsequently won a silver medal in 1809 and the gold medal, with a not insubstantial prize of 50 guineas in 1911 for 'Hercules Rescuing Alcestis from Orcas'. He had already been awarded a silver medal from the Society of Arts in 1808 for a plaster cast of the 'Laocoon'.
From the 1820s onwards he received commissions for several major sculptural contracts, including from the Royal Family and the Office of Works. The work for which Baily is best known is his statue of Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson for Nelson's Column erected in Trafalgar Square, London in 1843. Other notable sculptural works by Baily included the allegorical depiction of the death of Major General Sir William Ponsonby at the Battle of Waterloo for the Crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral in London (1820); Eve at the Fountain marble statue for Bristol Museum and Art Gallery (1822); Memorial to Thomas Parry, marble relief for St. George's Cathedral, Chennai, India (1824); Marble bust of Henry Fuseli (1824); Marble statue of John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent for the Crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral, London (1826); Marble sculpture of George Pelham for St Mary's Church, Buckden, Cambridgeshire (1827); Statues and architectural ornaments for Marble Arch, London (1828); 'Pallas Athene', a gilded statue for the Athenaeum Club, London (1829); Marble bus of Sir Thomas Lawrence (1830); 'Maternal Affection', marble sculptural group (1837); Marble statue of Thomas Telford, Westminster Abbey, London (1839); Marble bust of Prince Albert (1841); Marble statue of Astley Cooper for St. Paul's Cathedral, London (1842); Marble statue of David Hare for Hare School Calcutta, now Kolkata (1845); and a bronze and granite statue of Robert Peel for Market Place, Bury, Lancashire (1852).
[For a detailed list of Baily's works see Roscoe, Ingrid; Hardy, Emma; and Sullivan, M. G. A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain, 1660-1851. (Yale University Press, 209 pp. 57-64)]
Baily was a frequent exhibitor at the Royal Academy in London from 1810 to 1862. He also exhibited at Suffolk Street Gallery and the British Institution in London.
He was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy (ARA) in 1817, and a Royal Academician (RA) in 1821.
Baily's address was given as 13 Upper Cleveland Street, London in 1810 and 1811; 12 Mary Street, Fitzroy Square, London in 1813; 15 Clarendon Square, Somers Town, London in 1814 and 1817; 76 Dean Street, Soho, London in 1818; 8 Percy Street, London in 1824 and 1847; 17 Newman Street, London in 1848 and 1858; and 3 Ordnance Villas, St. John's Wood, London in 1860 and 1862. He died at his home, 99 Devonshire Road, Holloway, London, on 22 May 1867.
Text source: Art History Research net (AHR net)
Text source: Art History Research net (AHR net)
