| AdminHistory | William Sole (1741–1802) was a British botanist.
Sole was born in Little Thetford, Cambridgeshire, in 1741 to John Sole and his wife Martha, daughter of John Rayner, banker, of Ely. He studied at the King's School, Ely, then served an apprenticeship as an apothecary in Cambridge. On qualifying, he moved to Bath, accompanying his relative, the poet, Christopher Anstey, where he practiced as a surgeon. On the foundation of the Linnean Society, in 1788, Sole was chosen as one of its first associates, and carried on a long correspondence with John Pitchford of Norwich, the early friend of Sir James Edward Smith, on the subject of mints. He drew up a manuscript flora of Bath in 1782. In 1798 he published his chief botanical work, ‘Menthæ Britannicæ,’ a folio of fifty-four pages, illustrated by twenty-four copper-plates. He also prepared an account of the principal English grasses and their agricultural uses, with specimens, which he presented to the Bath and West of England Agricultural Society in 1799, and the society presented him with a silver tankard. He died unmarried at Trim Street, Bath, on 7 Feb. 1802, and was buried at Bath-Easton. |