Agnes Marion Ayre

Agnes Marion Ayre (1890-1940) was "a suffragist who helped win voting rights for women and a self-taught botanist whose extensive collection of preserved plants and watercolours formed the basis of Memorial University's Agnes Marion Ayre Herbarium." "She had a lifelong interest in botany and nature, often taking long walks with her art materials to sketch plants"; "remarkably, she collected five-sixths of the then known flora of the province." By her death from cancer in 1940 she had "completed 1,000 life-sized watercolour paintings with a historical record of each species." Founding member of the Newfoundland Historical Society and the Newfoundland Art Society. (Source: Heritage Newfoundland and Labrador, "Agnes Marion Ayre (1890-1940).")