Private Joseph Knox Bailie
Bailie (right) with his brother James
Joseph Knox Bailie (originally named Francis Turtle Bailie) was born on 25 August 1891 in Galgorm Street, Ballymena, County Antrim, the fifth of eight children of carter and general labourer Hugh Bailie and his wife Jane (née Turtle). By the time of the 1911 Census he was living at 1 Princes Street, Ballymena, with his parents and his five surviving siblings, and working as a postman.
Bailie enlisted in the North Irish Horse between 17 and 23 November 1915 (No.1949 – later Corps of Hussars No.71642). He trained at the regiment's Antrim reserve camp before embarking for France in 1916 or 1917, where he was posted to one of the squadrons of the 1st North Irish Horse Regiment. This regiment served as corps cavalry to VII, XIX, then V Corps from its establishment in May 1916 until February-March 1918, when it was dismounted and converted to a cyclist unit, serving as corps cyclists to V Corps until the end of the war.
Bailie remained with the regiment throughout the war. On 14 December 1917 the Ballymena Observer reported that:
Trooper Joseph Bailie, N.I.H., son of Mr. Hugh Bailie, Princes Street, arrived recently home on leave. He has two brothers on munition work.
On 23 February 1919 he was demobilised and transferred to Class Z, Army Reserve.
After the war Bailie returned to work as a postman in Ballymena. On 29 July 1925 he married Anne Lowry. He died in Ballymena on 21 September 1961.
Bailie as a postman
Belfast Telegraph, 22 September 1961
Images of Bailie sourced from Ancestry.com Public Member Trees - contributor Sally Hanvey.