Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Banks, Sarah Sophia

1018733Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 03 — Banks, Sarah Sophia1885Benjamin Daydon Jackson

BANKS, SARAH SOPHIA (1744–1818), only sister of Sir Joseph Banks, was born in 1744 and died on 27 Sept. 1818, at her brother's house in Soho Square, after a short illness. She had kindred tastes to her brother, and although debarred from such adventurous voyages as he undertook, she amassed a considerable collection of objects of natural history, books, and coins. Sir Joseph Banks presented her coins and engravings to the British Museum. The Abbé Mann, one of her brother's correspondents, presented her, in 1797, with a collection of German coins which she added to her collection (Letters of Eminent Literary Men, Camd. Soc. pp. 445–7).

[Gent. Mag. lxxxviii. pt. ii. (1818), p. 472.]

B. D. J.