William Sole
British botanist (1741-1802)

William Sole (1739 – 7 February 1802) 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. John and Martha had a further six children. John (bapt. 14 June 1741), Sarah (bapt. 15 May 1743), Elizabeth (bapt. 24 February 1744), Francis (bapt. 19 February 1748), Robert (bapt.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “William Sole” is british botanist (1741-1802). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through William, Sole and British, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8018602. VIAF identifies the subject as 59481737. The Library of Congress control number is nr89017040. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1739, 1802, 1741 and 1743.
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This entry incorporates text from “William Sole” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.