Bailey, John Frederick (1866 - 1938)

Summary

John F. Bailey, a leading botanist in Queensland and South Australia, was Assistant to the Queensland Government Botanist (his father, Frederick M. Bailey) for 16 years before becoming Curator of the Brisbane Botanic Garden on 1905. Over the next 12 years he made significant changes to the Garden, These included flood mitigation works, the installation of electric lighting, and a program of renovation for the Garden's buildings. He also re-established close connections with the Botanic Gardens in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Ballarat. Bailey's wider contributions to the horticultural and agricultural affairs of Queensland included lecturing at the Gatton, Agricultural College, acting as judge at horticultural shows, and publishing in the Queensland agricultural journal. For the last two years of his tenure, Bailey was simultaneously Queensland Government Botanist. He was actively involved in local scientific societies, being President of the Royal Society of Queensland. In 1917 Bailey became Director of the Adelaide Botanic Garden. Here, as in Queensland, he made improvements to the Garden's landscape and sought to keep horticulture in the public eye. He joined the local societies: he was a member of the Dahlia Society of South Australia and office-bearer of the Field naturalists' section of the Royal Society of South Australia. In 1932 Bailey retired to Queensland.

Details

Chronology

1889 - 1904

Career position - Assistant to the Government Botanist, Queensland Department of Agriculture

1893 - 1905

Career position - Secretary, Royal Society of Queensland

1901

Career event - Member of an expedition to the Gulf of Carpentaria with W. E. Roth

1904 - 1905

Career position - Assistant to the Government Botanist, Queensland Department of Agriculture and Stock

1905 - 1917

Career position - Curator, Brisbane Botanic Garden

1909

Career position - President, Royal Society of Queensland

1915 - 1917

Career position - Government Botanist, Queensland Department of Agriculture and Stock

1917 - 1932

Career position - Director, Adelaide Botanic Garden

Related entries

Archival resources

Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science

• Australian Botanists - Biographies, MS 064; Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science. Details

Queensland Herbarium

• John Frederick Bailey - Records, 1912 - 1949; Queensland Herbarium. Details

Published resources

Book Sections

• Vallee, Peter, 'Bailey, John Frederick (1866-1938), horticulturist' in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Bede Nairn and Geoffrey Serle, eds, vol. 7 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1979), pp. 137-138. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A070143b.htm. Details

Journal Articles

• Bailey, J. F., 'Report on the timber trees of Herberton District, northern Queensland', Queensland agricultural journal, 5 (1899), 391-405. Details
• Bailey, J. F., 'Introduction of economic plants into Queensland', Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland, 22 (1910), 77-102. Details
• Pulleine, R. H., 'The Botanical Colonisation of the Adelaide Plains', Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of South Australia, 35 (1935). Details
• White, C. T., 'The Bailey Family and its Place in the Botanical History of Australia', The Journal of the Historical Society of Queensland, 3 (5) (1945), 362-368. Details

Resources

• Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q17064297. Details
• 'Bailey, John Frederick (1866-1938)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-1467771. Details

See also

• Aitken, Richard and Looker, Michael eds, The Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2002), 700 pp. p. 68. Details
• Herbert, D. A., 'C. T. White memorial Lecture: the Brisbane Botanic Gardens', Queensland naturalist, 14 (4) (1952), 69-77. Details