[1] Averil Maud Bottomley was born on 23 December, 1889 in Kimberley, Cape Colony.

[1] She was educated at Huguenot Seminary in Wellington and South Africa College (Cape Town University).

[2] In 1911, Bottomley was awarded the Bachelor of Arts degree by the University of the Cape of Good Hope and in 1912 passed college examination for the Teacher's Certificate at the South African College in Cape Town.

[3] Since that time, she worked in the Division of Plant Pathology and Mycology of the Department of Agriculture in Pretoria.

[2] She collected fungi mainly around Pretoria (especially Fountain's Valley), Greytown and Cape Town, and deposited them in the Mycological Herbarium (later the National Collection of Fungi of the Plant Protection Research Unit) in Pretoria.