Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/306

 Compton, Hermann Vezin, Forbes Robertson, Ada Cavendish, Mrs. John Wood, and Rose Leclercq. He produced 'Thespis' on 26 Dec. 1871, the first work in which Gilbert and Sullivan collaborated, and was the first English manager to stage a play by Ibsen ('Quicksands or Pillars of Society,' 15 Dec. 1880). Some of the work which he produced was from his own pen. He himself wrote the farce 'The Birthplace of Podgers,' first represented at the Lyceum on 10 March 1858, in which Toole acted the part of Tom Cranky for thirty-six years ; the plot was suggested by Hollingshead's investigations in early life into the identity of the house in which the poet Chatterton died in Brook Street, Holborn ( Reminiscences of Toole, i. 96) ; in 1877 he adapted 'The Grasshopper' from ' La dgale ' of Meilhac and Halevy. In 1879 he arranged through M. Mayer for the complete company of the Comédie Française, including Sarah Bernhardt, Got, Delaunay, the two Coquelins, Febvre, and Mounet Sully, to give six weeks' performances (42 representations) from 2 June to 12 July. He paid 9600l. in advance, and the total receipts were 19,805l. 4s. 6d., an average of 473l. for each representation.

With characteristic public spirit, benevolence, and success, he organised many benefits for old actors or public objects. At Christmas 1874, in addition to the 'Gaiety,' he took and managed for a short time the Amphitheatre in Holborn and the Opera Comique in the Strand. In 1888 he resigned the management of the Gaiety to Mr. George Edwardes. The receipts from the theatre, which contained 2000 seats, were, for fifteen years of his control, 1869-1883, 608,201l. The house was closed for only eighteen weeks in seventeen years. HoUingshead was responsible for 969 matinees in the period. In eighteen years Hollingshead made 120,000l. profit, after paying away about 1¼ million sterling. His salaries were on a high scale. He paid Phelps, Toole, and Charles Mathews 100l. a week each for appearing in a revival of Colman's 'John Bull' in 1873.

On 12 March 1888 Hollingshead started, at a hall near Queen Anne's Gate, Westminster, a spectacular panorama of Niagara, which he carried on till 29 Nov. 1890. In his later years he contributed a weekly letter to the 'Umpire,' a Manchester sporting paper, and lost the fortune which he had derived from the Gaiety in speculation in theatres and music-halls. He died of heart failure at his house in the Fulham Road on 10 Oct. 1904, and was buried in Brompton cemetery near Sir Augustus Harris and Nellie Farren. He was married on 4 April 1854, and had issue two sons and one daughter. Edward Linley Sambourne [q. v. Suppl. II] did an excellent drawing of Hollingshead for 'Punch.'

In addition to the works already mentioned, Hollingshead pubUshed : 1. 'Ways of Life,' 1861. 2. 'To-day: Essays and Miscellanies,' 1865, 2 vols. 3. Miscellanies,' 1874, 3 vols, (selections from earlier collections). 4. 'The Story of Leicester Square,' 1892. 5. 'My Lifetime,' 1895, 2 vols, with photogravure portraits. 6. 'Gaiety Chronicles,' 1898 (with caricature portraits). 7. 'According to my Lights: Miscellanies in Prose and Verse,' 1900. 8. 'Charles Dickens as a Reader,' 1907.

 HOLLOWELL, JAMES HIRST (1851–1909), advocate of unsectarian education, born in St. Giles's Street, Northampton, on 25 Feb. 1851, was son of William Hollowell, shoemaker and a local preacher in the reformed Wesleyan denomination. His mother's maiden name was Mary Anne Swinfield. He left school early to earn a living, but read widely by himself, and also attended a class which met three times a week from five to six in the morning. In early youth he showed a gift for public speaking, and at eighteen became a temperance agent and lecturer. Joining the congregationalists at Dumfries, he decided to study for the congregational ministry. He was already married when in 1871 he entered Nottingham (congregational) institute. He went on to Cheshunt College in the f oUowing year, and there won a scholarship. From 1875 to 1882 he was pastor at Bedford chapel, Camden Town, London, and from 1882 to 1889 was minister of Park Hill congregational church, Nottingham. At Nottingham he was for a time chairman of the school board. Subsequently he was pastor of Milton church, Rochdale, from October 1889 till December 1896. This charge he relinquished in order to devote himself to the work of organising secretary of the Northern Counties Education League for promoting unsectarian state education. He was practically the founder of this league. His faith 