William Bailey

William or Bill Bailey may refer to:

Politicians

Sportsmen

William Bailey (trade unionist)

William Bailey (29 June 1851 – 29 July 1896) was a British trade unionist.

Born in Saint Helena, Bailey's father was a soldier, and the family returned to England in 1857, settling at Bargate, Suffolk. Bailey worked on a farm from the age of nine, then when he was fourteen moved to work at Fence Colliery near Sheffield. He later tranferred to Beighton Colliery, then Norwood Colliery, just over the border in Derbyshire. He was elected as the pit's checkweighman, and also became active in the South Yorkshire Miners' Association (SYMA).

Bailey was a founder of the Derbyshire Miners' Association, a split from the SYMA, and represented it on the Trades Union Congress in 1883, 1887 and 1889. In 1884, he supported a strike at Norwood Colliery, and was fired, forcing him to take work as an insurance agent. This enabled him to become more politically active, being a founder of the Labour Electoral Association (LEA) in 1886, and leading a campaign for miners to be able to elect any other miners as their checkweighman, even if they were based at another colliery. This campaign was successful, with a law enabling it being passed in 1887. That year, Bailey was invited to become the full-time agent and general secretary of the Nottinghamshire Miners' Association. He took the post, and proved highly successful; in six years, he took membership from around 500 to nearly 19,000.

William Bailey (Royal Navy officer)

Lieutenant Commander William "Bill" Bailey CBE DSC GM & Bar (1918 – 11 March 1985) was a British Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve officer and businessman, who was twice awarded the George Medal for his work as a clearance diver.

Early life

Bailey was born to British parents in Santos-o-Velho, Portugal, where his father worked as a mechanical engineer. He was educated at Oporto British School and Highgate School. He qualified as an electrical engineer from Faraday House Electrical Engineering College in 1940, and joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve immediately afterwards.

Military service

He received a commission as a Temporary Electrical Sub-Lieutenant, and after training took command of an armed mine trawler, HMS Prospects Ahead. Bailey subsequently undertook mine sweeping patrols in the North Sea. In September 1941 he was trained as a helmeted diver and deployed to Gibraltar as Senior Diving Officer. Based on HMS Cormorant, he had responsibility for defusing enemy underwater mines attached to Allied ships. On 29 December 1942 he was awarded the George Medal for "gallantry and undaunted devotion to duty" while defusing shipping mines in the western Mediterranean.