Holden died at Putney on 6 Feb. 1906, and was buried in the cemetery of the parish church at Upminster. By his will he bequeathed 3000l. to the medical school of St. Bartholomew's Hospital to endow a scholarship in surgery. He also made handsome bequests to St. Bartholomew's Hospital and to the Foundling Hospital. He was twice married (both wives bore the same name and were of the same family): (1) in July 1851 to Frances, daughter of Benjamin Wasey Sterry of Upminster, Essex; and (2) in 1868 to Frances, daughter of Wasey Sterry, who survived him. He had no children.
A fluent linguist and a good classic, as well as a keen sportsman, he was a conspicuously handsome member of a handsome family, and was seen at his best in the hunting field. A three-quarter length portrait—an admirable likeness—in oils, by Sir J. E. Millais, R.A., presented on Holden's retirement, hangs in the great hall at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. It has been engraved.
Holden, one of the last members of the anatomical school of surgery of the mid-nineteenth century, was primarily interested in anatomical, and only in a subordinate degree in surgical, study, and then in its clinical rather than in its operative aspect. He held that anatomy could be learnt only by personal dissection and examination of the dissected subject, and not by lectures, books, or pictures. An unpublished paper by him, 'On the Mechanism of the Hip Joint,' read at the Abernethian Society at St. Bartholomew's Hospital (24 Nov. 1850), exerted much influence. It dealt with the effect of atmospheric pressure in retaining the ball-shaped head of the femur within the socket of the acetabulum, and with the importance of keeping the anterior part of the capsular ligament in the erect attitude.
Holden published:
- 'Manual of the Dissection of the Human Body,' a book enjoying a large circulation, 1850, 4 pts. without illustrations; 1851, 1 vol. copiously illustrated; 5th edit. 1885; Philadelphia, 7th edit. 1901, 2 vols.
- 'Human Osteology,' 1855, 2 vols.; later editions 1 vol.; 8th edit. 1899; this work marked a distinct advance in the study of the human skeleton; the illustrations by Holden and etched on stone by Thomas Godart, librarian of the medical school of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, are of the highest order; they formed at the time a new feature in the teaching of anatomy, for the origins and insertions of the muscles were shown upon the figures of the bones in red and blue lines.
- 'Landmarks Medical and Surgical,' first published in the 'St. Bartholomew's Hospital Reports,' vol. 2 (1866), and vol. 6 (1870), separately issued in an enlarged and revised form in 1876; 4th edit. 1888; translated into Spanish by D. Servendo Talón y Calva (Madrid, 1894): a study of the application of anatomy to surgery proving how much anatomy can be learnt on the surface of the living body whilst the skin is yet unbroken.
[Brit. Med. Journal, 1905. i. 337; Lancet, 1905, i. 450 (each with a portrait); p. 1297 (an interesting note upon Holden's Osteology); St. Bartholomew's Hospital Reports, vol. xli. 1905, p. xxxi (with portrait); Medico-Chirurgical Trans., vol. lxxxviii. 1905, p. cxxiii; Bagnall's History of Wednesbury, Wolverhampton, 1864, p. 173, and Baker's Hist. of Northampton, i. 317, containing a genealogy of the family; private information; personal knowledge.]
HOLDER, Sir FREDERICK WILLIAM (1850–1909), first speaker of the house of representatives in the Australian commonwealth, born at Happy Valley, South Australia, on 12 May 1850, was son of James Morecott Holder of Adelaide by Martha Breakspear Robey, his wife. After education at St. Peter's College, Adelaide, he was for a time a state schoolmaster, and subsequently editor and proprietor of the 'Burra Record.' From 1886 to 1890 he was mayor of Burra.
He entered the legislative assembly of South Australia as member for the Burra district in April 1887, and was returned for the same constituency at the elections of 1890, 1893, 1896 and 1899. He was a member of several committees and royal commissions, including the land laws commission in 1887, Barrier trade select committee in 1888, intercolonial free trade commission in 1890, mails commission in 1890, pastoral lands commission in 1891, and the Orroroo railway commission in 1892. He took a prominent part in the movement for Australian federal union and was a member of the convention which framed the Commonwealth constitution in 1897-8.
From 27 June 1889 to 19 Aug. 1890 he was treasurer of the colony in Dr. Cockburn's ministry. After having been for some time virtually leader of the opposition, he was sent for in June 1892 on the defeat of the Playford ministry, and succeeded in forming a government, in which he again took the position of treasurer in addition to that of premier. His administration
