Basil Sole, Soldier, Journalist, Missionary and Vicar

By Roger Clayton

This article was originally published in April 2025 in Soul Search, the Journal of The Sole Society

The article below about Basil John Butler Sole was written by Roger Clayton who isn’t a member – his interest is in the Clayton family that Basil married into, rather than the Soles per se. Maureen Storey, Research Coordinator for the Sole surname, came into contact with Roger a few years ago when he asked if the Society had found Basil’s marriage
which had, and still does, elude him (and us), though it looks now as if the marriage was in Singapore in about 1927. In the course of his research, Roger has amassed a lot of information about Basil and his work and that is the basis for this article.

Basil John Butler Sole was born on 4 December 1894 in the rectory of St Thomas’ Parish Church, Winchester, Hampshire, being the second child and first son of the Reverend Arthur Baron Sole and Edith Mary nee Butler. His father had been the Rector of St Thomas’ since 1886 and therefore held that position on the day he married Edith Mary Butler in the same church. Basil Sole was baptised in St Thomas’ on Holy Innocent’s Day, 28 December 1894, by Reverend Basil Wilberforce who had also performed the marriage ceremony for his parents on 2 June 1891.

Reverend Basil Wilberforce was Rector of Southampton until April 1894 when he was appointed Canon of Westminster Abbey and Rector of the Parish Church of St John the Evangelist (annexed to Westminster). He had been born in Winchester, a grandson to the famed abolitionist William Wilberforce. It is possible that the close connection between Rev Basil Wilberforce and Rev Arthur Baron Sole gave rise to the Christian name Basil for his son.
On 16 September 1897 Basil was joined by a second sister, Elizabeth Muriel Butler Sole. His older sister Joan Mary Butler Sole had been born on 12 August 1892. At the turn of the century the family were living at 14 Clifton Road, Winchester with five female domestic servants. This house still stands today overlooking Oram’s Arbour. [Ed: an enclosed Iron Age settlement]
Tragedy struck in 1903, for on the 14 December Reverend Arthur Baron Sole died suddenly from an ‘embolic apoplexy’. Ten days earlier, the young scholar Basil J B Sole had just turned 9 years old but now found himself the only male in a household full of women. His schooling continued amid the grief.
Basil’s secondary education was completed by two years being a boarder at Repton School in Burton-on-Trent, Derbyshire. He started in January 1909 belonging to ‘The Cross House’, and he is listed on the 1911 Census for England & Wales as a ‘boarder’ of the school shortly before he left in July 1911.
The next step took him to Jesus College, Cambridge where he began his university studies in 1913. He was nearly nineteen years of age and followed in his father’s footsteps at Jesus College. Then, very soon after the United Kingdom entered The Great War on 4 August 1914, Basil enlisted into the 16th Middlesex Regiment, which consisted exclusively of former public school boys. These Public Schools Battalions were a group of Pals battalions and were raised as part of Kitchener’s Army. When the battalions were taken over by the British Army, Kitchener’s Army was faced with a dire shortage of officers and so ‘young gentlemen’ were encouraged to apply for commissions. Basil took the opportunity to apply and joined the Special Reserve Officers of the 5th Battalion The King’s Royal Rifle Corps. Being a Special Reservist he did not see action.
At the end of The Great War he returned to his studies at Cambridge, ultimately gaining a BA degree in 1919. He proposed to be a journalist.
It was as journalist that he visited Mount Kisco in New York State sailing on SS St Paul on the 9 October 1920 from Southampton.

He returned from Montreal on SS Montrose nearly two years later sailing on 16 June 1922 and arriving at Liverpool on 24 June. In this two year period he decided to change his life’s direction and become a missionary.
Shortly after arriving back in England, he was successful in joining the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG) and was sent to Tai-an Fu, China as a missionary teacher. The SPG had been founded in 1701 with the aim of providing clergy from the Church of England to minister to settlers and to convert non-believers in the colonies. Initially it concentrated on the North American colonies but by the end of the nineteenth century it was working worldwide. Basil’s route to China was via the USA and Canada, perhaps to visit old friends there, and he left Southampton on SS Minnesota on 14 September 1922. He remained in China until July 1929 apart from one furlough to England arriving on 10 June 1927 and returning to Shanghai on 08 July 1928.
During this furlough he met his future wife (Isabella) Vera Clayton and after his return to China plans were made for them to meet in Singapore and to be married at the end of July 1929. Subsequently, Basil arranged a transfer to St Michael’s School in Sandakan, Borneo. St Michael’s School was one of a number of schools set up by the Anglican Church to provide an education for the children of settlers and the local Christian community. The newly married couple arrived in Sandakan on 12 August 1929 and spent nearly four years in British North Borneo, returning to England in March 1933.

During the Sandakan years Basil had further thoughts regarding his life’s direction. He decided that he wished to be ordained yet also wanted to continue his missionary work. The return to England allowed him to further this plan by training for the priesthood initially at Warminster and then latterly at Up Holland, Lancashire. He was successful in obtaining the necessary qualifications for the post of Archdeacon of The Seychelles. Basil & Vera set sail on SS City of Hong Kong on 22 February 1936 to take up that post.
During his time in The Seychelles it was with sadness that in February 1944 he received the news of his mother’s death. He was to remain in The Seychelles for a further year until 1945 when he accepted the post of Vicar of Addlestone, Surrey. Whilst at Addlestone he had further sad news of the death of his elder sister Joan in February 1946. Then in 1948 he exchanged livings with Reverend Benyon to become the Vicar at St Saviour’s, Valley End, Chobham, Surrey. More moves followed when he was appointed Vicar of Durrus, Cork in 1952 and then Vicar of Castle Roche in 1953.
He died on 19 March 1956 at Dorset County Hospital from ‘carcinomatosis’ and ‘hypernephroma’. He had been living at ‘The Rectory, Halstock, near Yeovil, Somerset’ and left personal effects totaling £2011 8s 9d. ‘Vera’ Sole survived her husband until 1968. They both died without issue.

Biographical Note: Records for Basil John Butler Sole’s family start in the village of Stretham in the Cambridgeshire Fens. The earliest record we have for a Sole in Stretham is the burial of a William Sole in 1540. It is believed that the John Sole, who lived at Babren Grange in the parish of Witchford next Stretham was William’s son, though the baptism records for the period haven’t survived. This John and his wife Elizabeth are the probable parents of the 10 Soles whose marriages and burials occur in Stretham in the late 1500s. These probable children include John Sowle who was born about 1550 and who married his third wife Elizabeth Eliot in Stretham on 23 Nov 1601. John Sowle and Elizabeth Eliot were John Butler Sole’s 5xgt grandparents.