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. Sprengel named the genus Solea for Sole, although this was later merged into Hybanthus, or into Pombalia, in recent studies.