Bailey, Frederick Manson (1827 - 1915)

Summary

Frederick Bailey was the Colonial Botanist in Queensland 1881-1915. He had earlier been appointed by the Queensland Government as botanist to investigate the cause of diseases affecting livestock and plants. Frederick Manson collected plant specimen all over Queensland and in British New Guinea and made an important contribution to the naming and classification of eucalypts. His son was John Frederick Bailey and his grandson was Cyril Tenison White. The Queensland Herbarium is the principal repository of Bailey's specimens.

Details

After arriving in Adelaide in 1839, Bailey partnered his father and brother in a nursery at Hackney, near Adelaide. He then made a short visit to the Bendigo goldfields. Bailey eventually moved to Queensland where he set up his own seed supply store and plant collection business. He soon gained respect as a botanist, obtaining many distinguished career positions. Frederick Bailey's name was given to more than 50 species of plants. He published many significant volumes documenting Queensland's flora include the seven volume The Queensland flora (1899-1905) and Handbook of the Ferns of Queensland (1874).

Chronology

1839

Life event - Arrived in Australia (Adelaide)

1858 - 1861

Career position - Land holder in the Hutt Valley area of New Zealand

1861 - 1875

Career position - Seed store owner and plant exporter in Brisbane

1874 - 1880

Career position - Keeper of the herbarium, Queensland Museum

1875 - 1879

Career position - Botanist on the Queensland Government board to inquire into the causes of diseases affecting livestock and plants

1878

Taxonomy event - Eucalyptus planchoniana F.Muell. Bailey collected the type.

1878

Taxonomy event - Eucalyptus baileyana F.Muell. named for Bailey, who collected the type

1878 - 1915

Award - Fellow, Linnean Society of London

1879

Career event - Corresponding Member, Société Royal Botanique de Belgique

1879 - 1915

Career position - Corresponding Member, Linnean Society of New South Wales

1880 - 1882

Career position - Acting Curator, Queensland Museum

1880 - 1883

Award - Honorary Member, Philosophical Society of Queensland

1881 - 1904

Career position - Colonial (later Government) Botanist, Queensland Department of Agriculture

1884 - 1900

Career position - Member of Council, Royal Society of Queensland

1884 - 1915

Career position - Foundation Member, Royal Society of Queensland

1886 - 1894

Career position - Foundation Chairman, Field Naturalists' Section, Royal Society of Queensland

1890

Career position - President, Royal Society of Queensland

1892

Career event - Corresponding Member, pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain

1902

Award - Clarke Medal, Royal Society of New South Wales

1904 - 1915

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

1905

Career event - Corresponding member, Royal Botanical Society of Edinburgh

1906

Taxonomy event - Collected and described Eucalyptus leichhardtii F.M.Bailey (= Eucalyptus peltata Benth. (F. M. Bailey) ssp. Leichhardtii L. Johnson & D. Blaxell (1973)). Now Corymbia leichhardtii (F.M.Bailey) K.D.Hill & L.A.S.Johnson (1995)

1911

Career position - President, Section D (Biology), Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science

1911

Award - Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG)

1915

Award - Honorary Member, Field Naturalists' Club of Queensland

Related entries

Archival resources

Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science

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

Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales

• Frederick Manson Bailey - Records, 1876 - 1896; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details

National Herbarium, Melbourne

• Ferdinand Jakob Heinrich von Mueller - Records, 1888 - 1889, MSS M31; National Herbarium, Melbourne. Details
• Frederick Manson Bailey - Records, 1875 - 1889, MSS M5; National Herbarium, Melbourne. Details

Queensland Herbarium

• Frederick Manson Bailey - Records, 1887 - 1915; Queensland Herbarium. Details

Published resources

Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Exhibitions

• Collins, David, Chemistry in 19th Australia - Select Bibliography, An exhibition of the Encyclopedia circa 2005 with assistance from Ailie Smith and Gavan McCarthy., eScholarship Research Centre (original publisher), Melbourne, 2009, https://eoas.info/exhibitions/ciab/ciab_ALL.html. Details
• McCarthy, Gavan; Smith, Ailie; Moje, Christine; Rigby, Rebecca, The Study of Australian Eucalypts, eScholarship Research Centre, 2013, http://www.eoas.info/eucalypts/index.html. Details

Books

• Bailey, F. Manson, Handbook to the ferns of Queensland : compiled from the most recent works on ferns and an introduction to fern study (Brisbane: Thorne and Greenwell, 1874), 72 pp. Details
• Bailey, F. Manson.; and Gordon, P. R., Plants reputed poisonous and injurious to stock (Brisbane: Government Printer, 1887), 112 pp. Details
• Bailey, F.M., Contributions to the Queensland Flora (Brisbane: Government Printer, 1891), 39 pp. Details
• Bailey, Frederick Manson, The Queensland flora: with plates illustrating some rare species [7 v.] (Brisbane: Queensland Government, 1899-1905). Details
• Meston, A.; and Bailey, F. M., Report of the Government Expedition to the Bellenden-Ker Range; upon the flora and fauna of that part of the Colony (Brisbane: Government Printer, 1889), 28, 127 pp. Details

Book Sections

• Marks, E. N., 'Bailey, Frederick Manson (1827-1915), colonial botanist' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 3: 1851 - 1890 A-C, Douglas Pike, ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1969), pp. 73-74. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A030074b.htm. Details

Journal Articles

• Bailey, F. M., 'Medicinal Plants of Queensland', The Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, 5 (1880), 1-29, https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/LIN/issue/view/462. Details
• Bailey, F. M., 'A Concise History of Australian Botany', Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland, 8 (1891), xvii-xli. Details
• Bailey, F.M., 'Eucalyptus leichhardtii', Queensland Agricultural Journal, 16 (8) (1906), 493. Details
• Bean, A. R., 'The major explorations of F. M. Bailey', Austrobaileya, 11 (1) (2021), 67-79. Details
• Clements, Gail, 'Colonial Science: F.M. Bailey and the Proposed Supplement to Flora australiensis', Historical Records of Australian Science, 12 (2) (1998), 149-162. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR9981220149. Details
• Dowe, John L., 'F. M. Bailey's Ascent of Mt Bellenden-Ker in 1889, and Notes on the Publication Priority of New Vascular Plant Species from The Expedition', Austrobaileya, 7 (2007), 555-566. Details
• Dowe, John Leslie and Broughton, Alan D., 'F.M.Bailey's taxonomy of Meston's collections from the Bennenden Ker Expedition of 1904', Austrobaileya, 7 (2008), 675-7. Details
• Henderson, Rodney J. F., 'A note on F. M. Bailey's botany bulletins', Austrobaileya, 2 (1) (1984), 107. Details
• Johnston, T. Harvey, 'Frederick Manson Bailey, CMG, FLS Presidential Address', Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland, 28 (1916), 3-10. Details
• Ryley, Malcolm J., ' Common leaf spot of lucerne and the dawn of mycology and plant pathology in Australia', Historical records of Australian science, 35 (2) (2024), 105-15. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR23010. Details
• Sanderson, Rachel, 'Many Beautiful Things: Botanists' Accounts of North Queensland Rainforests', Historical Records of Australian Science, 18 (1) (2007), 1-18, https://doi.org/10.1071/HR07004. Details
• Short, Philip, 'Frederick Manson Bailey (1827 - 1915), as seen by Archibald Meston', Australasian Systematic Botany Society newsletter, 196 (2023), 13-7. 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
• White, C.T., 'F. M. Bailey: His Life and Work', Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland, lxi (1950), 105-114. Details

Resources

• VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/61124568. Details
• Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q2659122. Details
• 'Bailey, F Manson (1827-1915)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-612144. Details

See also

• Fagg, Murray, 'Bailey, Frederick Manson (1827 - 1915)', Australian Plant Collectors and Illustrators, Council of Heads of Australian Herbaria (CHAH), 2010, https://www.anbg.gov.au/biography/bailey-frederick.html. Details
• George, Alex S., Australian botanist's companion (Kardinya, W.A.: Four Gables Press, 2009), 671 pp. Details
• Hall, Norman, Botanists of the Eucalypts: short biographies of people who have named eucalypts, whose names have been given to species or who have collected type material (Melbourne: CSIRO, 1978), 101 pp. Details
• Maiden, J. H., 'Records of Australian botanists (second supplement)', Journal and Proceedings of The Royal Society of New South Wales, 55 (1921), 150-169. Details