Worked in the wool trade at Nottingham before moving to Australia where he lived for many years and built up a large collection of insects. Returned to England where he continued to collect.
The Register of the insect collections in the NHM records that they acquired 515 Buprestids and 2,430 Llamellicorns from Bakewell's collection after his death, and that Bakewell 'bought Laferte’s collection in 1860. This collection of Llamellicorns was purchased by Mr Bakewell of M. de Laferte. It was founded on Dejean's collection and was amalgamated with the collections of MM. Reiche, Dupont, Buquet etc., Gory'. The labels from the collection are pasted to the pages of the Register. Another two collections of Australian beetles amounting to some 1179 specimens were given to the NHM in 1849, the labels on the specimens stating that they were chiefly given by Mr MacLeay through whose hands Mr Bakewell's collection passed. I have not found any reference there to the collection of Heteromera which Musgrave (1932) records the British Museum Trustees purchased in 1871. Bakewell is recorded to have left Australian insects to Dr Howitt of Melbourne.
FES from 1857 and a member of the French Entomological Society from 1860. There is an obituary notice in Ent.mon.Mag., 4. 1868, 211 and references to him in O. Janson’s Journal in the Zoological Museum at Cambridge. (MD 9/01, 8/17)