John Bailey (critic)

John Cann Bailey (10 January 1864 – 29 June 1931) was an English literary critic, lecturer, and chairman of the National Trust.

After education at Haileybury College and New College, Oxford, Bailey qualified as a barrister, but did not practise law. He attempted unsuccessfully to enter politics, and later became a leading figure in the National Trust.

As a literary critic he wrote twelve books and many reviews in literary journals. He was assistant editor of The Quarterly Review, and chairman (later president) of the English Association.

Bailey was born in Wymondham, Norfolk, the third son of Elijah Crosier Bailey, a solicitor, and his wife, Jane Sarah née Cann. He was educated at Haileybury College and, from 1882 to 1886, at New College, Oxford, where he obtained a second class degree in classics. He made many friends in the literary and artistic circles of Oxford, and developed his love of fine arts and Greek and Latin classics.

He was called to the bar by the Inner Temple in 1892, but never practised law; he had a private income adequate to sustain him. He made an unsuccessful attempt to enter politics as a Conservative candidate, losing at parliamentary elections in 1895 and 1900. Among those elected to parliament at the first of these elections was Alfred Lyttelton, to whom Bailey was for a time assistant private secretary. In April 1900 he married Lyttelton's half-sister, Sarah Kathleen (1879–1941), the eldest daughter of the second marriage of George Lyttelton, 4th Baron Lyttelton. They had three daughters, the youngest of whom predeceased Bailey.

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