[3] He completed his Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) degree in 1970 with a thesis titled The development of political organisation in the Allahabad locality, 1880–1925[4] under John Andrew Gallagher.
Bayly was the Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History at the University of Cambridge from 1992 to 2013.
He was co-editor of The New Cambridge History of India and sat on the editorial board of various academic journals.
In the 2007 Queen's Birthday Honours, it was announced that he had been appointed a Knight Bachelor 'for services to History'.
[6] Upon being informed of the knighthood, he stated: "I regard this not only as a great personal honour but, as an historian of India, as recognition of the growing importance of the history of the non-western world.