William Sole
William Sole was a British apothecary and botanist.
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography states that William Sole was born in 1741 in Little Thetford, Cambridgeshire, However, evidence suggest that he was born in 1739 and Baptised on 28 September in Witchford, Cambridgeshire.
William Sole was the first son of John and Martha Sole. Sometime after his birth, the family moved to Little Thetford. William and Martha had a further six children. John, Sarah, Elizabeth, Francis, Robert, Martha. In his will dated 15 March 1802, Sole mentions all of his siblings, with the exception of Elizabeth.
Sole studied at the King's School, Ely, then served an apprenticeship as an apothecary in Cambridge. On qualifying, he moved to Bath.
In his spare time, Sole undertook influential botanical research, specialising in the study of mints in his garden, where he tried to replicate natural conditions as closely as possible. In 1798, he published Menthae Britannicae, and the terminology he used in the text was adopted generally throughout the nineteenth century. He also researched grasses and the local flora of Bath, and was elected as one of the first associates of the Linnean Society.
Sprengel named the genus Solea for Sole, although this was later merged into Hybanthus, or into Pombalia, in recent studies.
