Jane Baird

Baird was born in Edinburgh, the daughter of William Baird and Jane King Mitchell Baird.^[1] She was an educator who taught at North Fort Street School in Edinburgh.^[2] Later, she taught Esperanto at Leith's Technical College.^[3]

Baird learned the International auxiliary language Esperanto. She joined the Edinburgh Esperanto Society in 1909,^[2] and later served as vice-president.^[4] She attended the 1912 World Esperanto Congress in Kraków, Poland, with fellow society members. She organised a monthly contest that ran for six years until the end 1922,^[5] inviting children to send her postcards with their answers to Esperanto questions.^[6] She was on the organising committee of the 1926 World Esperanto Congress in Edinburgh.^[7]

Baird was one of the three compilers of the Edinburgh Esperanto Pocket Dictionary, working along with John Mabon Warden [pl] and William Harvey. It was first published in 1915.^[8] By the time of her death over a hundred thousand copies of the Dictionary had been sold in English-speaking countries.

Baird died in 1960, aged 84, at a nursing home in Edinburgh.^[2][9]

• "Notes for an Object Lesson" (1915, The Esperanto Monthly)^[10]