South Africa Keay was born on 11 June 1911 in
Pretoria, South Africa, the only child of Scottish parents. Her father was Under-Secretary for Justice in the
Union of South Africa. Her early schooling was at the Collegiate School for Girls in
Port Elizabeth. She completed a BSc in Botany and a Secondary teachers certificate (
with distinction) at
Cape Town University.
England In 1934 she became a research student in
mycology and
plant pathology at
Newnham College, Cambridge under
F.T. Brooks and in 1943 she was appointed a lecturer at the
University of Reading, England. She also spent some time in
Norfolk, England researching diseases in
flax, which was used in
parachute harnesses. She returned to Cambridge to the Cambridge University School of Agriculture after the
Second World War where she worked with the Commonwealth Potato Collection (now held at the
James Hutton Institute and
Svalbard Global Seed Vault). At this time women were only allowed to attend either
Girton College or
Newnham College at Cambridge. Keay joined a lobby group to have more of the colleges open to women.
New Hall and
Lucy Cavendish, both female only colleges, were subsequently opened.
Uganda In 1954, she went to Uganda, and was appointed as reader in agricultural botany at the Faculty of Agriculture of
Makerere College (now Makere University) in
Kampala and became head of department in 1960. She was appointed dean of the faculty of agriculture in 1962. During her time in Uganda she assisted in establishing a bursary fund for the secondary education of girls in Uganda. She was also a member of the Uganda Foundation for the Blind.
Nigeria In 1964, she moved to Nigeria where she was appointed senior plant
pathologist of the Institute for Agricultural Research at
Ahmadu Bello University. She lectured in climatology; plant
morphology and
pathology; and the
botany of East African crop plants. From 1968 she was appointed professor and head of department of crop protection.
Return to England In 1971, at age 60, Keay retired from Ahmadu Bello University and moved to
Wye College becoming dean of women students. The next year she was awarded an
OBE. and after retirement in 1976 joined the Department of Applied Biology at Cambridge until its closure in 1989. She died at Cambridge in 1998. ==References==