Galle Face Burial Ground"
"Sacred to the memory of, the late Major Thomas Bayly, H. M.'s Ceylon Regiment, who departed this life on the 10th Feb., 1827, aged 47 years. He served his King and Country 28 years in Egypt,. India, and Ceylon.
This simple tribute of respect by his afflicted family,, who in him deplore the loss of an affectionate husband and indulgent parent and kind friend. Major Thomas Bayly was bom at Devizes, August 1 , 1779. He entered the Navy, was Midshipman on board the Circe frigate. Captain Winthrop, and taken prisoner in the first French War, 1793-98. He was treated with much severity during one year's captivity in the Citadel of Lille. When reUeved on the exchange of prisoners he returned to England. Having purchased a commission in the Connaught Rangers, he embarked with a detachment of his regiment in 1800 to join its headquarters at Bombay. On his arrival he found that the regiment had proceeded to Egypt, and followed it immediately, under the command of Sir David Baird. In that expedition he gained the Egyptian medal. On the cessation of hostilities he returned to the detachment left at Bombay, and was with it engaged in active service until 1804, when he was promoted to a captaincy in the 3rd Ceylon Regiment. He served with that regiment in Travancore and in other parts of the coast of Southern India, where it was assisting in quelling instirrections, and also in the Kandyan War of 1815, and to the end of the rebellion of 1817-18. He was in command of the troops at the execution of the chief Ellapola at Kandy on October 27, 1818. In 1818 he was appointed Commandant and Agent of Government of Three Korales, with headquarters at Buanwella, where he remained until his death. Here "Major B., the Commandant, not only paid me every attention, but also gave me much information about the surrounding country." (Campbell, p. 60.) He " died at Grand Pass on his way to Colombo from his station, which he left for the benefit of medical advice." He left a widow and nine children. " He was so universally known and respected that it must be quite unnecessary to offer any panegyric." [Gazette, March 3, 1827.)
Major Bayly married, as an Ensign at Calcutta, in 1800, Lydia Hammond, the daughter of an officer of the East India Company's Service. She died at Nuwara Eliya in 1848. Three of their sons went into the army. One was Captain F. B. Bayly, Ceylon Rifles. Another son, Robert Lionel, was in the Customs. The eldest, Thomas, was gazetted 2nd Lieutenant in the 3rd Ceylon, November 26, 1815, and was in that corps in 1816, and afterwards in the 19th and 20th Regiments. He died at the Cape.
