Born circa 1800, Priscilla Susan Bury was the daughter of a wealthy Liverpool merchant. She was raised at her family's estate, Fairfield, where exotic plants were grown in the family's hothouses. As a young girl, she began painting flowers in the Victorian tradition, which viewed women illustrating flowers as a genteel, diverting and instructive study [so] that the fair sex could find amusement.... The talented Bury¹s illustrations (or "portraits" as she called them) were primarily of lilies and related flowers. At that time, Liverpool was England¹s second city, a major industrial and trade center. Due in large part to the efforts of William Roscoe, a wealthy Liverpool merchant and botanist, it also became a center for the Linnaean System of classification, which further fueled the Victorian fascination for botanical subjects.