Solander, Daniel (1733 - 1782)

Summary

Daniel Solander received his botanical training at the university in Uppsala, Sweden, under Carl Linnaeus. Convinced of the merits of Linnaeus's new system of classification of natural objects, Solander went to England in 1760 to spread the word. In 1768 he was appointed scientific assistant on the voyage of H.M.B. Endeavour to the south seas under command of James Cook. Other members of the scientific complement on board were Joseph Banks, Herman Spöring, and Sydney Parkinson. On returning to London Solander became secretary and librarian to Banks, and worked on describing the plant specimens collected on the voyage. It was intended that these descriptions be published to accompany large-scale coloured engravings of the plants. Despite Banks spending considerable time and money on the preparation of the plates, nothing was published during his lifetime. In consequence Solander's reputation as a botanist was less than it should have been. His manuscript on the plants collected during the six months the expedition spent in New Zealand, "Primitae florae novae zelandiae", was also never published.

Details

Chronology

1760

Life event - Arrived in England

1763 - 1768

Career position - Assistant Librarian, British Museum

1764 - 1782

Award - Fellow, The Royal Society, London (FRS)

1768 - 1771

Career position - Scientific assistant (botanist) on board H.M.B. Endeavour under command of James Cook

1771

Award - Doctor of Civil Law, University of Oxford

1771 - 1782

Career position - Secretary and librarian to Joseph Banks

1772

Life event - Travelling with Joseph Banks to Scotland and Iceland

1773

Award - Foreign Member, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

1925

Taxonomy event - Eucalyptus gummifera (Sol. ex Gaertn.) Hochr.

Related entries

Archival resources

Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science

• Australian Botanists - Biographies, MS 064; Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science. Details

Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales

• Daniel Solander - Records, 1768 - 1782, ML DOC 1659; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Joseph Banks - Records, 1774 - 1814, MS Q158-161; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details

National Library of Australia Manuscript Collection

• Daniel Solander - Records, 1768, MS 3607; National Library of Australia Manuscript Collection. Details

Powerhouse Museum

• Joseph Banks - Records, 1766 - 1820, ML MSS 2144; Powerhouse Museum. Details

Published resources

Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Exhibitions

• McCarthy, Gavan; Smith, Ailie; Moje, Christine; Rigby, Rebecca, The Study of Australian Eucalypts, eScholarship Research Centre, 2013, http://www.eoas.info/eucalypts/index.html. Details

Books

• Duyker, Edward, Nature's Argonaut: Daniel Solander, 1733-1782, Naturalist and Voyager with Cook and Banks (Melbourne: Miegunyah Press, 1998), 436 pp. Details
• Gertsakis, Elizabeth, Curator, Botanical Venus: Daniel Solander in New Holland 2 June - 9 September 2001 (Melbourne: Australia Post, 2001), 16 pp. Details

Book Sections

• Fries, R. E., 'Commemoration Address' in Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences Year-Book (Stockholm: 1940). Details
• Gilbert, L. A., 'Solander, Daniel (1733-1782), naturalist' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 2: 1788 - 1850 I-Z, Douglas Pike, ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1967), pp. 456-457. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A020421b.htm. Details

Edited Books

• Duyker, Edward and Tingbrand, Per eds, Daniel Solander: Collected Correspondence 1753-1782 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press at Miegunyah Press, 1995), 484 pp. Details
• Gisselqvist, Christian and Tingbrand, Per eds, Daniel Solander 1733-1782, Naturvetenskapsman och Varldsomseglare (Pitea: Pitea Kommuns Kulturnamnd, 1983), 179 pp. Details

Journal Articles

• 'Dr Solander', Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of South Australia, 24 (1922), 77. Details
• Andrews, John Robert Haydon, 'The East Coast of the North Island: Zoological Collections of the Endeavour Voyage', Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 42 (2) (2012), 139-44. Details
• Benson, Doug and Eldershaw, Georgina, 'Backdrop to Encounter: the 1770 Landscape of Botany Bay, the Plants collected by Banks and Solander and the Rehabilitation of Natural Vegetation at Kurnell', Cunninghamia, 10 (2007), 113-137. Details
• Groves, E. W., 'Notes on the botanical specimens collected by Banks and Solander on Cook's first voyage, together with an itinerary of landing localities', Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History, 4 (1) (1962), 57-62. Details
• Iredale, T., 'Solander as an Ornithologist', Ibis (1913), 127-135. Details
• Rauschenberg, R. A., 'A letter of Sir Joseph Banks describing the life of Daniel Solander', Isis, 55 (1968), 62-7. Details
• Rose, Edwin D., 'Specimens, slips and systems, Daniel Solander and the classification of nature at the world's first public museum, 1753 - 1768', British Journal for the History of Science, 51 (2) (2018), 205-37. Details
• Salkin, A. I., 'Short History of the Discovery and Naming of Banksias in Eastern Australia: Part 1, Banks and Solander', The Victorian naturalist, 98 (2) (1981), 69-71. Details

Resources

• VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/14901383. Details
• Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q39789. Details
• 'Solander, Daniel Charles (1733-1782)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-1298011. Details

See also

• Beaglehole, J. C., The Endeavour journal of Joseph Banks : 1768 - 1771, 2 vols (Sydney: Trustees of the Public Library of New South Wales in association with Angus and Robertson, 1963). Details
• Brosse, Jacques; translated by Hochman, Stanley, Great voyages of exploration: the golden age of discovery in the Pacific (Lane Cove, N.S.W.: Doubleday Australia, 1983), 228 pp. Details
• Hall, Norman, Botanists of the Eucalypts: short biographies of people who have named eucalypts, whose names have been given to species or who have collected type material (Melbourne: CSIRO, 1978), 101 pp. Details
• Maiden, J. H., 'Records of Australian botanists (second supplement)', Journal and Proceedings of The Royal Society of New South Wales, 55 (1921), 150-169. Details
• Serle, Percival, Dictionary of Australian biography (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1949). Details