This is the piece about Edwin's life however, he seems to lie or fantasize or something so I don't know what to believe:
A few items of family affairs, dictated to my son Cyril by father (about 27 years ago)
Grandfather married a Miss Wallace. His occupation was farming. He owned a farm at “Shillgrill” 7 ½ miles from Lichfield, South Staffordshire. Family sold up farm and a portion of them went with Grandfather to Australia taking with them various family relics. One of Grandfather’s uncles was in the iron trade being one of the firm of Bayliss, Jones and Bayliss, who had a large iron manufactory in Wolverhampton. Another uncle, Henry Bayliss, did not like the iron trade and lived some 30 miles from Lichfield (probably Madesley) and may have been the father of Sir Wyke Bayliss, the artist. My father bought the farm from Grandfather. There was an aunt who had a house at Walsall on the hill, it was said very wealthy, but she is now probably dead and her daughter, name of Clayton, would inherit the property. In 1856 I married Emma Ann Williams, (who was our servant) daughter of a blacksmith residing at Birmingham, at a church between Walsall and Bucknall. A few months after marriage, going home I swam a stream, to escape from some Gypsies and got inflammation in my eyes, and while sitting in church became partly blind. The sight was lost thorugh lack of proper attention. A woman professing to know how to cure me proving a fraud.
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Uncle Arthur speaking:-
A rather interesting thing to me, is that when working at the A & N I have served on several occasions Lady Bayliss, and once she was with Sir Wyke and I was struck with the facial likeness to father, so much so that on arriving home I told them about it. This would bee about 1919 or 1920. I have a cutting from the Daily Mail which I stupidly forgot to date) giving an account of Sir Wyke Baylis’ death viz:-
“We regret to announce the death of Sir Wyke Bayliss which took place suddenly on Thursday night at his residence at Clapham. The deceased was born at Madsley, Salop, in 1835, but 10 years later in consequence of the failure of the engineering firm in which the family was interested, his father moved to London, where he became known as a teacher of military and mathematical drawing. It was in his study that his son had the only real training he ever received, to use his own expression, and a thorough grounding in perspective decided the direction of his talent. At the age of 18 he entered an architect’s office, but the work never took a firm hold of him, and preserving his determination to become a painter he continued his studies towards that end.”
(signed) A. H. Bayliss
May 23rd 1936