In 1905, Ley was created a Baronet, of Epperstone Manor[3] and, in the same year, served as High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire.

[2] The business became the Ley's Malleable Castings Company Ltd.[6] The Vulcan Iron Works at Osmaston Road occupied an 11-acre site by the Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway.

[7] In the London Gazette of 14 April 1876 Ley was granted a patent for "improvements in apparatus for locking and fastening nuts on fish plate and other bolts".

[10] Ley decided that, as a way of ensuring a healthier and more productive workforce, an investment should be made in promoting recreation for his workers.

During his journey to the States, Ley had seen the way in which baseball fields had been laid out by companies and factories for the use by their workers and decided to follow suit on his return to Derby.

Spalding, who also sold sporting goods, was enthusiastic and sent a skilled manager, Jim Hart and players: William J. Barr, Charles Bartlett, J.E.Prior and Leech Maskrey.

[10] The intention had been to have eight teams but initially there were just four Aston Villa, Preston North End, Stoke and Derby Baseball Club.

The first three used Hart to decide the line-up of their teams, but Ley, who had more experience of baseball, made his own decisions.

His daughter Ethel Ley (1873–1953) married in Epperstone on 16 December 1902 Henry John Boyd-Carpenter (1865–1923), a son of William Boyd Carpenter, Bishop of Ripon, and himself a colonial official in Egypt, where he was Chief Inspector to the Ministry of Public Instruction, then Inspector General of Schools.

He also owned 6,500 aces of farmland and was the Lord of the Manor at Epperstone, Lazonby, Staffield, Glassonby around Kirkoswald in Cumbria.