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CHARLES BAILEY, M.Sc., F.L S. (1838-1924). 
Mr. Bailey’s name will always be associated more with the 
older Botanical Exchange Club, of which he was the life and soul 
for so many years, than with our own. But he became an active 
and subscribing member of the Watson Club in 1903, and 
remained a subscriber to the end; and until 1920, when advan- 
cing age curtailed his activities, there were only two years when 
he did not contribute a parcel of his beautifully preserved and 
carefully labelled specimens. Not only were his dried plants a 
pleasure to handle, and his hand-writing a pleasure to read, but 
everything he did was thorough, and his love of order and 
method ever apparent. He was prompt and business-like in his 
botanical as in his other work, and withal he showed a generous 
spirit in small as well as in large things. 
Charles Bailey was born at Atherstone, Warwickshire, June 
14th, 1838, and at an early age he became engaged in the busi- 
ness of the important firm of Ralli Brothers, East India Mer- 
chants, in whose Manchester house he remained attached for no 
less than fifty-five years. After living at Whalley Range and 
St. Annes-on-Sea, he removed to Cleeve Hill, above Cheltenham, 
on retirement from business. To his house on Cleeve Hill he 
added a large building expressly planned to accommodate his 
enormous herbarium of over 88,000 sheets of British and more 
than 209,000 sheets of foreign plants. I remember with what 
extreme care and neatness everything was arranged. Before he 
moved finally to St. Mary Church, Torquay, where, in December 
1921, I last saw him, his botanical collections were given to the 
University of Manchester, together with a substantial endow- 
ment. 
Bailey was elected F.L.S. in 1878, and in 1902 the honorary 
degree of M.Sc. was conferred upon him by the University of 
Manchester. The majority of his botanical writings, most of 
which were not long, were published in the Memoirs and Proc. 
of the Manchester Lit. and Phil. Soc. between 1866 and 1909. 
We may here quote a few lines from the Manchester Guardian , 
Sept. 17, 1924, written by his friend Prof. F. E Weiss, F.R.S. : 
“Through all recognition by his fellow-citizens and fellow- 
scientists of his merits, Charles Bailey preserved his innate 
modesty, and always shrank from taking a prominent position 
such as his distinction warranted. Ever anxious to help, he 
preferred to be a private in the ranks, where he could always be 
relied upon to do more than his share of the work. His integrity 
and kindliness endeared him to a large circle, and all who came 
