Katherine Sophia Baily (Lady Kane) and The Irish Flora (1833)

Abstract

When she was only 22 years old, Katherine Sophia Baily published, anonymously, a pocketable account of the native flora of Ireland. While her name was not on the title-page, it was evidently not a secret and was soon revealed in several Irish periodicals. The following year, 1834, Miss Baily also published two articles on arboriculture in Ireland, but nothing else, as far as can be ascertained. She was the first woman admitted to the Botanical Society of Edinburgh shortly after its founding in 1836, and was the first woman to put together a flora (preceding Mary Kirby's 1850 Flora of Leicestershire). Little has been published about Katherine Baily (1811–1886) apart from general entries in standard biographical dictionaries and bibliographies. Common to most of these is the statement that she was “of Newbury, Berkshire”, but that is not confirmed by details given in a genealogical account of the Baily family of Berkshire. Also unstated is the fact that she belonged to the Roman Catholic church, causing one Irish reviewer to remark that she was “a young lady, a native, and …, we understand, a member of that anti-botanical church”. In 1838 Katherine married the Irish scientist Robert John Kane, and when he was knighted in 1846 she became Lady Kane. Conferva kaneana McCalla was intended to honour her.