Daniel Carlsson Solander or
Daniel Charles Solander (19 February 1733 – 16 May 1782) was a
SwedishSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe...
botanist.
Solander was born in
PiteåPiteå is a locality and the seat of Piteå Municipality in Norrbotten County, Sweden with 22,650 inhabitants in 2005.- Geography :Piteå is located at the mouth of the Pite River , at the shore of the Bay of Bothnia...
,
NorrlandNorrland is one of the three lands of Sweden , the northern part, consisting of nine provinces. The term Norrland is not used for any administrative purpose, but it is common in everyday language, e.g...
, Sweden and was the son of a Lutheran principal. He enrolled at
Uppsala UniversityUppsala University is a research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded as early as 1477, it is the oldest such institution in the Nordic countries, and for centuries has been one of Europe's most renowned seats of learning....
in July 1750 and studied languages and the humanities. The professor of botany was the celebrated
Carolus LinnaeusCarl Linnaeus was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature...
who was soon impressed by young Solander's ability and accordingly persuaded his father to let him study natural history. He traveled to
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 1760 to promote Linnaeus' new system of classification. He was an assistant librarian at the
British MuseumThe British Museum is a museum of human history and culture situated in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from...
from 1763 onwards, and elected as Fellow of the
Royal SocietyThe Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, or even the Royal, is a learned society for science that was founded in 1660 and is considered by most to be the oldest such society still in existence...
in the following year. Afterwards he held the position of Keeper of Printed Books at the
British MuseumThe British Museum is a museum of human history and culture situated in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from...
.
In 1768 Solander and his fellow scientist Dr. Herman Spöring were employed by
Joseph BanksSir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, GCB, PRS was a British naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences. He took part in Captain James Cook's first great voyage . Banks is credited with the introduction to the Western world of eucalyptus, acacia, mimosa, and the genus named after him, Banksia...
, to join him on
James CookCaptain James Cook, FRS RN , was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer, ultimately rising to the rank of Captain in the Royal Navy...
's first voyage to the
Pacific OceanThe Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. Its name is derived from the Latin name Tepre Pacificum, "peaceful sea", bestowed upon it by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. It extends from the Arctic in the north to Antarctica in the south, bounded by Asia and...
on board the
EndeavourHMS Endeavour, also known as HM Bark Endeavour, was a Royal Navy research vessel commanded by Lieutenant James Cook on his first voyage of discovery, to Australia and New Zealand from 1769 to 1771....
.
They were the botanists who inspired the name
Botanist Bay (which later became
Botany BayBotany Bay is a bay in Sydney, New South Wales, a few kilometres south of the Sydney central business district. The Cooks River and the Georges River are the two major tributaries that flow into the bay...
), Cook's expedition's first landing place in
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
.
Solander helped make and describe an important collection of Australian plants while the Endeavour was beached at the site of present-day
CooktownCooktown is the northernmost town on the east coast of Australia, located at the mouth of the Endeavour River, on Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland....
for nearly 7 weeks, after being damaged on the
Great Barrier ReefThe Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over 2,600 kilometres over an area of approximately...
. These collections later formed the basis of
Banks' FlorilegiumBanks' Florilegium is a collection of copperplate engravings of plants collected by Sir Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander while they accompanied Captain James Cook on his voyage around the world between 1768 and 1771...
.
On their return in 1771 he became Banks' secretary and librarian and lived in his house at Soho Square. In 1772 he accompanied Banks on his voyage to
IcelandThe Republic of Iceland is a European island country located in the North Atlantic Ocean. It has a population of about 320,000 and a total area of 103,000 km². Its capital and largest city is Reykjavík, whose surrounding area is home to approximately two thirds of the national population...
, the
FaroesThe Faroe Islands, sometimes Faeroe Islands, Faroe, or Faeroes are an island group situated between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, approximately halfway between Scotland and Iceland...
and the
Orkney IslandsOrkney, also known as the Orkney Islands, , is an archipelago in northern Scotland, situated 10 miles north of the coast of Caithness...
. 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 SciencesThe Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences or Kungliga Vetenskapsakademin is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. The Academy is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization which acts to promote the sciences, primarily the natural sciences and mathematics.The Academy was founded on 2 June...
.
Solander invented the book-form box known as the
Solander boxA Solander box is a book-form case used for storing manuscripts, maps, prints, documents, etc. It is commonly used in archives and libraries. It is named after Swedish botanist Daniel Carlsson Solander , who is credited with its construction while working at the British Museum.The case is usually...
which is still used in libraries and archives as the most suitable way of storing prints, drawings,
herbariumIn botany, a herbarium is a collection of preserved plant specimens. These specimens may be whole plants or plant parts: these will usually be in a dried form, mounted on a sheet, but depending upon the material may also be kept in alcohol or other preservative...
materials and some manuscripts.
He died at Banks' home in Soho Square of a
strokeA stroke is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by thrombosis or embolism or due to a hemorrhage...
, aged 49, at 9.30pm on 13 May 1782. An autopsy was performed the next day, and revealed a brain haemorrhage.
Solander Gardens in the east end of London is named after him, as are the
Solander IslandsThe Solander Islands are a small chain of uninhabited volcanic islets lying at , close to the western end of the Foveaux Strait in southern New Zealand...
off
New ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. The indigenous Māori named New Zealand Aotearoa, commonly translated as The Land of the Long White Cloud...
's South Island. One of the many plants named in his honour is
Nothofagus solandri. He was associated with Banks in
Illustrations of the Botany of Captain Cook's Voyage Round the World, and his
The Natural History of Many Curious and Uncommon Zoophytes, Collected by the late John Ellis, was published posthumously in 1786.
External links