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 born at Deptford in Kent on 17 July 1800, and brought up as a bookseller in the house of John Lepard, 108 Strand, London. He was afterwards for a short time in business at Derby on his own account. His catalogue of a collection of oriental books, and another of the Battle Abbey charters, compiled for John Cochrane, bookseller, 108 Strand, in 1830, recommended him to the notice of Lords Bexley and Glenelg, and through their interest he was, on 15 Jan. 1830, appointed a temporary assistant in the department of manuscripts, British Museum, where he was promoted to be a senior assistant in April 1837, and was assistant-keeper from 6 May 1850 until his death. In 1840 he contributed a biographical list of the French ambassadors to England to the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ xiv. 483–7, 608–10; in May 1843 he sent an article on ‘Libraries and Catalogues’ to the ‘Quarterly Review,’ lxxii. 1–25, and to ‘A Relation of England, translated from the Italian,’ edited for the Camden Society by Miss Charlotte A. Sneyd in 1847, he supplied an account of the Venetian ambassadors to England. He was the adviser of Bertram, fourth earl of Ashburnham, in the formation of his famous collection of manuscripts, which was sold in 1883–4. While at the Museum he compiled with great care catalogues of the Arundel, Burney, and other collections of manuscripts, and was at the time of his death engaged on a ‘Catalogue of the Manuscript Maps and Plans found dispersed in different collections and for the most part undescribed.’ He died at 4 Park Terrace, Highgate, on 1 April 1854. His library was sold by Puttick & Simpson on 15 June 1854. He married, 8 Sept. 1832, Mary Anne, eldest daughter of Charles Rivington, bookseller, of St. Paul's Churchyard, by whom he left four children. She died at Highgate on 8 Feb. 1870. The second son, Sir Richard Rivington Holmes, K.C.V.O., was royal librarian at Windsor Castle from October 1869, and keeper of the prints and drawings from 26 Feb. 1870; he retired in 1906.

Besides the works mentioned above, Holmes was author or editor of: 1. ‘A Catalogue of Manuscripts in different Languages, now selling by John Cochrane,’ 1829. 2. ‘Catalogue of the Manuscripts, Maps, Charts in the British Museum,’ 1844. 3. ‘The Life of Mrs. Godolphin. By J. Evelyn. With notes,’ 1847; another edition, 1848. 4. ‘The Life of Cardinal Wolsey. By G. Cavendish,’ 1852. 5. ‘Ecclesiastical Biography. By C. Wordsworth, with notes,’ 1853. 6. ‘Some Correspondence on the grant of 1,800l. to the National School of Highgate,’ 1853. 7. ‘A Letter explanatory of Correspondence on the grant of 1,800l. to the National School of Highgate,’ 1853. 

HOLMES, JOHN BECK (1767–1843), Moravian bishop, was born at Copenhagen on 3 Nov. 1767. In 1780 he was sent to the academy at Uisky, and thence to the Moravian Theological Seminary at Barby. In 1791 he was appointed a teacher in Fulneck school, near Bradford, where he remained until 1799, in which year he entered on his duties as a pastor of the Moravian church at Wyke, Yorkshire. By 1818 he was pastor of the congregation in Dublin, whence he returned to Fulneck as bishop of the church there. He died on 3 Sept. 1843, and was buried at Fulneck (, Biographia Leodiensis, p. 401). Under the name of John Holmes he published: 1. ‘Historical Sketches of the Missions of the United Brethren for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen, from their commencement to the present time,’ 8vo, Dublin, 1818. 2. ‘History of the Protestant Church of the United Brethren,’ 2 vols. 8vo, London, Bradford (printed), 1825–30, of which a trivial abridgment was issued in 1854. 

HOLMES or HOMES, NATHANIEL, D.D. (1599–1678), puritan divine, son of the Rev. George Holmes of Kingswood in Gloucestershire, was born in 1599 in Wiltshire. He matriculated on 11 April 1617 as a fellow-commoner of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, whence he migrated to Exeter College. He was admitted B.A. on 19 Oct. 1620. He appears to have then returned to Magdalen Hall, taking his degree of M.A. in 1623 as a member of that house (Oxf. Univ. Reg., Oxf. Hist. Soc., ii. 360, iii. 388). He had previously taken orders and became a frequent preacher in the neighbourhood of Oxford. He took the degrees in divinity, B.D. in 1633, and D.D. in 1637, as a member of Exeter College. His views inclining strongly to Calvinism, he was among the earliest of the ministers who subscribed to the covenant, and was presented in 1643 to the rectory of St. Mary Staining. Holmes soon changed his views, and, becoming a millenarian, joined Henry Burton, B.D. [q. v.], minister of St. Matthew's, Friday Street, in establishing an independent congregation towards the end of 1643. Wood states (Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iii. 1168) that he had several congregations in the country, which he visited ‘like a bishop of a diocese’ from time to time: one of them was at Dover.