Bayfield was born John St. Clair Roberts in Cheltenham, England, the son of George Bayfield Roberts, an Oxford-educated country parson, and his wife Ida, the eldest of three illegitimate daughters of Edward Law, 1st Earl of Ellenborough, a prominent politician and Governor-General of India in the years preceding the Indian Mutiny.
Bayfield was born John St. Clair Roberts in Cheltenham, England, as the son of George Bayfield Roberts, an Oxford-educated country clergyman, and his wife Ida, the eldest of three illegitimate daughters of Edward Law, 1st Earl of Ellenborough, a prominent politician and Governor-General of India before the Indian Mutiny.