Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 27.djvu/191

 Dupont as Edgar, and by Harlowe as Cyrus, are in the Garrick Club. Miss Holman played a few times in England before going to America. Her first appearance in London was made at the Haymarket, 22 Aug. 1811, as Belvidera in ‘Venice Preserved.’ She also played Lady Townly, Calista in the ‘Fair Penitent,’ Angela in the ‘Castle Spectre,’ and Julia in the ‘Rivals.’

 HOLMAN, WILLIAM (d. 1730), antiquary, was a congregational minister at Stepney, Middlesex, whence he was transferred to Halstead, Essex, in 1700. During the last twenty years of his life he diligently collected materials for a history of Essex, and visited personally every town and village in the county (, British Topography, i. 343). He also made large extracts from Thomas Jekyll’s Essex collections, filling, according to Morant, ‘above four hundred’ volumes. He died suddenly in the porch of Colne Engaine Church, Essex, on 4 Nov. 1730 (, Evangelical Nonconformity in Essex, p. 403).

The subsequent history of Holman’s manuscripts is very confused. Gough asserts (ib. i. 370) that Holman’s papers after his death were sold by his son, a draper at Sudbury, Suffolk, and that Nathaniel Salmon (author of the “History of Essex,” published in 1740) bought them in 1739, and afterwards sold part to Anthony Allen, master in chancery, from whom they are supposed to have come to John Booth, F.S.A. But from a document preserved in the Colchester Museum it appears that Holman himself sold his manuscripts to the vicar of Halstead, and Morant, who was then curate there, was a witness of the sale. In another place (ib. i. 344) Gough says that Holman’s papers came into Dr. Richard Rawlinson’s hands, and were left by him in 1785 to the Bodleian Library. This statement is also erroneous, for Morant, in a letter to Gough. dated 5 Sept. 1769, tells him that Rawlinson bought only the ‘refuse’ of Holman's manuscripts (Nichols, Lit. Anecd. ii, 705), and very few of Holman’s notes are now among the Rawlinson MSS. Morant, by his own account, had in his possession the larger mass of Holman’s papers, from which he derived by far the most valuable part of his volumes. They afterwards became the property of the Hills of Earl’s Colne, near Halstead, who were related to Morant. About twenty to twenty-five volumes were presented to the corporation of Colchester by the father of the present representative of the family, and are now in the museum there.

Holman also compiled in 1715 an ‘exact catalogue’ of the Jekyll MSS., which afterwards belonged to the Anstises, and subsequently came to the library of All Souls’ College, Oxford, where it now is, No. 297. A copy is in the British Museum, Egerton MS. 2832, f. 183.

 HOLME, BENJAMIN (1683–1749), quaker, was born of quaker parentage at Penrith, Cumberland, in January 1683 (N.S.) and brought up as a Friend. In his autobiography he says that ‘he grew up in wildness,’ but when about fourteen years of age he prayed, and somewhat later testified at meetings. While still very young he was recognised as a minister, and travelled to ‘visit Friends.’ In 1699 he made a journey with [q. v.] and Joseph Kirkbride, an American Friend, through the north of England. Two years later he visited a number of meetings in the east and west of England and in Wales, and in 1703 went to Scotland, where he was imprisoned for a night at Glasgow for travelling on the sabbath. The following year he visited Ireland for the first time. Early in 1706 he went to live at York, where he appears to have been engaged in business, but he continued to spend a large part of each year in ministerial journeys. In 1712 he again visited Ireland, was imprisoned at Longford for preaching, and was ill-treated at Londonderry. In 1714 he visited the Friends in Holland, and the following year those in New England. In America he was opposed by various ministers, and a day was set apart to pray against the spreading of his teaching; but he escaped persecution. In 1719 he visited the West Indies for a few months. In 1722 he took an active part in obtaining from the parliament a less objectionable form of affirmation than that then prescribed for the quakers. During the following year he again went to Holland, and while there visited the Mennonites and wrote ‘A Serious Call,’ a treatise giving a succinct account of quaker principles, which was first printed in Dutch and published in 1724. The four following years were chiefly spent in a minute inves-