Wellesley Cosby Bailey

Bailey was born in Ireland in 1846 and was educated, with his three brothers, at Kilkenny College.

Bailey travelled to India in 1869, going to the north of the country, where he encountered people affected by leprosy at a time when there was no cure for the disease and those affected were widely treated as outcasts. In 1870 he married Alice Grahame at Bombay Cathedral.

The mission he began grew into an organised society, of which he became secretary and treasurer while continuing to work from India. He returned to India in 1875 as a lay missionary with the Church of Scotland. In 1886 he was appointed full-time secretary of the Mission to Lepers, and in 1905 became its superintendent.

In 1913 he undertook a final tour of the mission's work in a number of countries, and he retired in 1917 at the age of 71. By then the mission was working in twelve countries and supporting more than 14,000 people affected by leprosy.

In India, the organisation he founded is now The Leprosy Mission Trust India, headquartered in New Delhi and registered as a society. It runs sixteen hospitals, six vocational training centres, four residential care homes for elderly people affected by leprosy, nine community empowerment projects and a molecular research laboratory across nine Indian states. It marked its 140th anniversary in 2014.

In 1999 The Leprosy Mission established the Wellesley Bailey Awards in his name, given to people who have overcome the stigma of leprosy and made a significant contribution to society.[2][3]