Daniel Solander

Solander thus became the first university-educated scientist to set foot on Australian soil.

Daniel Solander studied at Uppsala University. Training under Carl Linnaeus is recorded. The recorded working language is Swedish. The field of work recorded is botany and zoology. Places of work recorded in the authority are Uppsala. Employment is recorded with Uppsala University, Joseph Banks and British Museum. Distinctions recorded are Fellow of the Royal Society.

• Name — Daniel Solander • Honorific Suffix — FRS • Born — 19 February 1733 • Birthplace — Piteå, Norrbotten, Sweden • Died — 13 May 1782 • Place of death — London, England • Fields — Botany Zoology • Education — Uppsala University • Author Abbrev Bot — Sol.

Solander was born in Piteå, Norrbotten, Sweden, to Rev. Carl Solander a Lutheran principal, and Magdalena (née Bostadia). Solander enrolled at Uppsala University in July 1750 and initially studied languages, the humanities and law. The professor of botany was the celebrated Carl Linnaeus, who was soon impressed by young Solander's ability and accordingly persuaded his father to let him study natural history. Solander travelled to England in June 1760 to promote the new Linnean system of classification. In February 1763, he began cataloguing the natural history collections of the British Museum, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in June the following year.

In 1768, Solander gained leave of absence from the British Museum and with his assistant Herman Spöring accompanied Joseph Banks on James Cook's first voyage to the Pacific Ocean aboard the Endeavour. They were the botanists who inspired the name Botanist Bay (which later became Botany Bay) for the first landing place of Cook's expedition in Australia. Solander helped make and describe an important collection of Australian plants while the Endeavour was beached at the site of present-day Cooktown for nearly seven weeks, after being damaged on the Great Barrier Reef. These collections later formed the basis of Banks' Florilegium. Solander also wrote a manuscript describing all the species collected from New Zealand during the six months the 1768 expedition spent there. It was called Primitiae Florae Novae Zelandiae ('beginnings of a New Zealand flora'), and was to be illustrated with the plates prepared by Banks. It was never published, but it was available for study by anyone interested, first at Banks' London home, then at the Natural History section of the British Museum. • Illustration — Solander's grave in Brookwood Cemetery Solander's return to Britain with Cook and Banks made him the first Swede to circumnavigate the globe. On their return in 1771, Solander resumed his duties at the British Museum but also collaborated with Banks on the Florilegium. In 1772, he accompanied Banks on his voyage to Iceland, the Hebrides and the Orkney Islands. 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, aged 49, on 13 May 1782. An autopsy was performed the next day, and revealed a brain hemorrhage. He is buried in the Swedish Section at Brookwood Cemetery.