Bayley was a member of the Bengal Civil Service (1799–1830) and a director and chairman of the British East India Company (1834–1858).

He reached India in 1799, just in time to be entered as a member of the new college of Fort William, which Lord Wellesley had recently established for the education of Indian civil servants.

In the governor-general's office all the cleverest young men of the civil service were collected together, and acted under Lord Wellesley's own eye.

[1] In 1805, he was made deputy-registrar of the Sudder court, and in 1807, interpreter to the commission which, under the guidance of St. George Tucker, was to regulate the government and land settlement of Wellesley's recent conquests, now known as the North-western Provinces.

In this capacity he was of the greatest service to Lord Hastings, from his thorough mastery of business and personal intimacy with all the Indian statesmen of the period — Malcolm, Elphinstone, Adam, Metcalfe, Jenkins, and Cole.

That he received no distinction for his services was due to his own unassuming modesty, but he bequeathed the traditions of his ability in India to two able Indian administrators, his nephew, Sir Edward Clive Bayley, formerly a member of the supreme council, and his son, Sir Steuart Bayley, at one time chief commissioner of Assam.