Daniel
Solander
Painting by William Parry
Linnean Society, London
Daniel
Solander
The Botanist and Nature´s Argonaut
Daniel
Solander (1733-1782) was born on 19 February 1733
in Old Piteå Town (Öjebyn) as the son of
the headmaster at Piteå trivialschool, later
vicar of Piteå parish Carl Solander (1699-1760)
and his wife Magdalena Bostadia Solander (1713-1789).
He had the siblings Sophia Christina (1732-1733),
Anna Magdalena (1735-1807) and Carl Bernard (1739-1739).
The
young Daniel passed local school with excellent grades
and was at 17 years of age enrolled at Uppsala University,
where he studied natural history under the famous
" princeps botanicorum " Carl von Linné
or Linneaeus (1707-1778). He knew Solander´s
parents since he had lived for two nights with the
Solander family in June 1732 during his own Iter Lapponicum.
During his years of study in Uppsala the young man
from Piteå lived with his uncle and namesake,
the professor of law Daniel Solander (1707-1785) but
went " as child in the house " with his
teacher and fell in love with Linnaeus´s eldest
daughter Elizabeth Christina, whom he later in many
letters to Linnaeus fondly referred to as " my
sweetest mamselle Lisa Stina ". During the summers
and other lengthy holidays he visited his parrents´
home in Piteå.Demonstrably he came home for
botanical excursions in the summer of 1753, when he
crossed the mountains and went to Rörstad on
the Atlantic coast of Norway, and in the summer of
1755, when he botanized at Lake Torneträsk. In
January 1756 he attended a child´s baptism in
Piteå.
Two
prominent naturalists in England - Peter Collinson
(1694-1769) and John Ellis (1710?-1776) prevailed
upon Linnaeus to send one of his foremost pupils to
England to spread the gospel of " Systema naturae
", Linnaeus´s revolutionizing system for
classification of plants, animals and minerals. For
that mission the young promising son of a priest from
Piteå was chosen. In April 1759 Solander departed
overland southward to Skåne from where he hoped
to find a berth on a ship to London. On 30 May 1759
Linnaeus wrote to Ellis presuming that his "
beloved pupil " had already arrived and commended
Solander into Ellis´s protection as " if
he had been my own son ". However in the meantime
Solander had fallen ill with malaria and been obliged
to lodge with a cousin of his, who was married to
a clergyman in Skåne. After several relapses
into malaria it was not until 29 June 1760 that Solander
finally arrived in London. There he soon received
the news that his father Carl Solander had died back
home in Piteå on 27 May 1760.
Solander
was outgoing and made friends easily. Linguistically
talented he soon learned to speak and write English
very well. Already in 1762 he attended meetings in
Royal Society, of which learned society he became
a fullfledged member (F.R.S.) two years later. Through
Collinson he got a position at the British Museum
in February 1763, were he catalogued plants from all
corners of the growing British empire. Among his numerous
friends from this period should be mentioned the North
American scientist and later statesman Benjamin Franklin
(1706-1790), with whom Solander performed various
experiments. At the latest in 1764 he was acquainted
with a young, wealthy landlord´s son Joseph
Banks (1743-1820), an acquaintance that was to grow
into a lifelong deep friendship.
With
royal support Royal Society decided to send a ship
to the South Seas in order to observe i June 1769
the transit of the planet Venus in front of the sun
disc and also to search for the mythical continent
believed to be found in the vast southern ocean balancing
the land masses of the nothern hemisphere. Since ancient
times such a continent was known as Terra Australis
Nondum Cognita. Lieutenant James Cook (1728-1779)
was appointed commander of the ship H.M. Bark Endeavour
and Banks succeeded in obtaining the permission to
join the expedition with scientists, draughtsmen and
seervants at his own expense. In spite of being a
foreigner Solander was allowed to be the ace in Banks´s
suite.
From
26 August 1768 to 12 July 1771 Endeavour sailed around
the earth along the route Plymouth - Maderia - Rio
de Janeiro - Tierra del Fuego/Patagonia - Tuamotu
Islands - Society Islands - New Zeeland - New Holland
- New Guinea - Dutch East Indies - St Helena - Deal
in the 2 years, 9 months and 14 days. Out of a crew
of 94 that left 38 never returned having succumbed
in different misfortunes, hardships and diseases.
During this epic voyage Solander became - together
with Cook, Banks and the rest of the crew - the first
Europeans to sight 1769 on 7 April Ravahere
in the Tuamotus, on 14 July Tetiaroa in the windward
group of the Societies and the same day Huahine in
the leeward group of the Societies, on the 16 July
Raiatea and Tahaa in hte leeward group of the Societies,
on the 14 Agust Rurutu in the Austral Islands, on
hte 7 October yhe northeastern coast of New Zealand
with a landing on the following day in Poverty Bay,
followed up by a circumnavigation of six months of
both North and South Islands sailing through Cook´s
Strait [the Dutchman Abel Tasman had in 1642 seen
a short strech of the western coast without landing];
1770 on 19 April the eastern coast of New Holland
(later Australia) with subsequent landing in Botany
Bay 28 April and a sail of four months along the eastern
coast with several landings and final passage through
the sound between Cape York and New Guinea, that the
Spaniard Torres had sailed through but not charted
in 1606. Since apart from Solander there was also
another Swede on board, Hermann Diedrich Spöring
the younger (173?-1771) from Åbo in Finland,
then part of Sweden, it can be assumed that the Swedish
language was spoken in New Zealand and eastern Australia
just as early as the English tongue. When the ship
returned to England it brought roughly 30 300 specimen
of plants in which 3 607 species were represented.
About 110 genera and about 1 400 species were new
to science. Lots of fish, birds, conches and other
molluscs were also brought back home. During the circumnavigation
Solander had prepared floras of the new worlds and
other to science most valuable documents - among them
the very first scientific report on the kangaroo -
but the facts that these were not published in his
lifetime and that he was in the remainder of his life
" lionized " gave him a most unfair reputation
of being too sociable and even downright lazy. It
is only in our time that this myth has been crushed
and substituted with unreserved recognition of Solander´s
great importance as botanist and zoologist.
The
English press paid homage to Solander and Banks even
more than to Cook, whose incontestable greatness as
a seafarer was not publicly recognized until after
the second circumnavigation 1772-1775. For example
Public Advertiser wrote on 22 July 1771 about "
Dr. Solander and the other Gentlemen, who lately sailed
around the world in the Endeavour bark, spent four
Months at George´s Land, one of the new discovered
Islands.---Dr. Solander and his Company touched at
near forty other undiscovered Islands, not known to
other Europeans, but which have plenty of Inhabitants;
and have brought over with them about a thousand different
Species of Plants, none of which were known in Europe
before ".
King
George III received Banks and Solander in audience
one week before Cook and Oxford University honoured
the Swede with a Doctorate of Law. Banks and Solander
were also to join Cook during his second circimnavigation
on the Resolution but Banks´s row with the admiralty
on hte fitting out of the ship resulted in Banks´s
defection and always loyal ti his friend and patron
Solander followed suit. Instead they sailed in the
summer of 1772 on the brig Sir Lawrence to the Hebrides,
Iceland and the Orkneys climbing the Hecla volcano
on Iceland and producing more scientific manuscripts
like the " Flora Islandica ".
Solander
never returned to Sweden. Extraordinarily well liked
in social life he preferred to work in the British
Museum and declined offers of the Chair of Botany
at the University of St Petersburg and even hints
to come home and become the successor of Linnaeus
in Uppsala. At 49 years of age he suffered a cerebral
haemorrhage on 8 May 1782, that five days later ended
his life. At his deathbed was present Carl von Linne´the
younger (1741-1783), who had succeeded his father
in Uppsala.
In
the Anglosaxon world Solander´s name is by far
a greater name than in his native country. His name
will for ever be associated with the flora and fauna
of the pacific. At the Terra Australis conference
in Sydney in August 1988 Solander were named the Father
of Pacific Botany like his friends Joseph Banks and
Benjamin Franklin earlier were named the Father of
Australia respectively the Father of the United States.
Since 1914 a Solander Monument in Swedish granite
is to be found in Botany Bay south of Sydney where
in 1770 Cook named one of the headlands Point Solander,
nowadays Cape Solander. In New Zealand there are Big
and Little Solander Islands south Island. Outside
Vancouver in Canada there is also a Solander Island
as well as there was still in the beginning of this
century also a Solander island off the coast of Burma.
King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden inaugurated on 31 March
1982 the bust of Solander, that the municipality of
Piteå had given to Solander Garden in Botanical
Garden in Sydney while at the same time princess Christina
of Sweden opened a Solander exhibition in Macleay
Museum at the University of Sydney named " My
Dear Friend Daniel Solander ". British Museum
in London held on 28 March 1983 a " Daniel Solander
Symposium " while in the same spring Sutherland
Shire Historical Society in New South Wales in Australia
organized a " Daniel Solander Heritage Week "
on 10-17 April 1983. Apart from Sweden six other countries
participated in late June 1983 in Piteå in the
celebration of the 250th anniversary of Solander´s
birth the most numerous foreign delegation being the
one from New Zealand headed by the Minister of Tourism
Rob Talbot. At the same jubilee in Piteå a scientific
symposium was organized by the Royal Skyttean Society
and the University of Umeå in Solander´s
honour. A Solander exhibition at the University library
in Aucjkland on 19 February 1986 and a Solander lecture
in Royal Society in Wellington five days later ought
also to be mentioned. Busts of Solander are to be
found in Auckland, Sydney and London apart from the
one at Uddmansgatan in Piteå. Many countries
with New Zealand and Australia in the lead - so far
regrettably not his native country - have issued stamps
connected to Solander. In 1995 Solander´s collected
Correspondence 1753-1782 (188 letters) was published
by Melbourne University Press in Australia [ISBN 0
522 84636 X]. A biography of Solander, titled "
Nature´s Argonaut " and written by the
Sydney historian Dr Edward Duyker, who visited Piteå
in 1992 has been published in 1998. This biography
is the very first on Solander in book form. Previously
inter alia the North American Roy Raushenberg has
written " Daniel Carl Solander, naturalist on
the Endeavour " (1968). In recent years Solander´s
role as the very first Swede to circumnavigate the
globe has been stressed by yachtsmen in Sweden. Thus
since 1980 Piteå Yacht Club, of which he has
posthumously been made an honorary member, is awarding
a much coveted Solander Plaquette to yachtsmen, not
necessarily members of the club, who during the year
have performed an extraordinary long distance sail.
An abundant literature on Solander´s
life and circumnavigation was produced in Piteå
in the years 1978-1996. It is listed separately.
Per Tingbrand
Writings
by Per Tingbrand
Back
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For more information on Daniel Solander, send e-mail
to:
Per Tingbrand
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