| AdminHistory | Daniel Solander (1733-1782) was a Swedish naturalist and one of the Apostles of Carl Linnaeus.
Solander was born in Piteå, Norrbotten, Sweden on 19 Febrary 1733 to Rev. Carl Solander and Magdalena née Bostadia. He enrolled at Uppsala University in July 1750 and initially studied languages, the humanities and law, where Carl Linnaeus was working as the professor of botany. Linnaeus, impressed by the young Solander, persuaded his father to let him study natural history and in 1760 Solander travelled to England to promote the new Linnean system of classification. In 1762, Linnaeus found Solander the position of Professor of Botany in St. Petersburg but instead Solander decided to stay in England. In 1763, he began work at the British Museum, cataloguing the natural history collections.
In 1768, Solander was employed by Sir Joseph Banks to follow James Cook on his first journey to the Pacific Ocean aboard the 'Endeavour' and they travelled to Australia, Asia, Africa and several other countries. In 1772, Solander and Banks made another botanical journey together, this time to Iceland. Between 1773 and 1782 he was Keeper of the Natural History Department of the British Museum. In 1773 he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Solander died at Banks' home in Soho Square of a stroke on 13 May 1782. |