tigation of the quaker meetings in Ireland. In a letter to David Bull of Tottenham, dated December 1725, he states that he was arrested at Letterkenny for refusing to make a declaration of fidelity, but was released after some time at the instance of the Bishop of Raphoe. During 1724 he interested many of the Irish bishops in a bill to establish a suitable form of affirmation, which became law in 1725. After his return home he was chiefly occupied in ministerial journeys in England and Scotland. He visited Ireland in 1734, and once paid a visit to Jersey, where a small meeting was much oppressed by the magistrates, and obtained redress of their grievances. He died at Swansea in April 1749, from an illness brought on by attending a meeting when in bad health.
Holme was widely esteemed, plain, simple, and charitable. His writings are extremely practical and broad in tone, while their style is pleasant and lucid. The chief are:
- ‘A Tender Invitation and Call to all People, to Embrace the offers of God's Love,’ &c., 1713 (reprinted three times and translated into French).
- ‘A Serious Call in Christian Love to all People. … With some Observations on the following heads: (1) The Universality of God's Love …; (2) The Holy Scriptures; (3) Worship; (4) Baptism; (5) The Supper; (6) Perfection; (7) The Resurrection; (8) Swearing; The Conclusion,’ 1725 (originally written in English and translated into Dutch and published at Amsterdam, n.d.; but printed in 1724, reprinted twenty-four times in English, and translated into Latin, French, and Welsh).
- ‘A Collection of the Epistles and Works of Benjamin Holme. To which is prefixed an Account of his Life and Travels in the Work of the Ministry, through several parts of Europe and America. Written by Himself,’ 1753; reprinted 1754. While in America he also wrote a tract against ‘Mixt Marriages,’ which were then common among American quakers.
[Benjamin Holme's Collection of the Epistles, &c., 1753; Smith's Cat. of Friends' Books; Rutty's Hist. of the Friends in Ireland; Bowden's Hist. of the Friends in America.]
HOLME, EDWARD (1770–1847), physician, son of Thomas Holme, farmer and mercer, was born at Kendal, Westmoreland, on 17 Feb. 1770. After attending a school at Sedbergh, he spent two years at the Manchester academy, and afterwards studied at the universities of Göttingen and Edinburgh. He graduated M.D. at Leyden in December 1793, his thesis, ‘De Structura et Usu Vasorum Absorbentium,’ occupying sixty-one pages. Early in 1794 he began practice at Manchester, and was shortly afterwards elected one of the physicians to the infirmary there. He joined the Literary and Philosophical Society on settling in Manchester, and was one of its vice-presidents from 1797 to 1844, when he succeeded Dr. John Dalton as president. He was one of the founders of the Portico Library, and its president for twenty-eight years. He was also a founder and first president of both the Manchester Natural History Society and the Chetham Society. He was the first president of the medical section of the British Association at its inaugural meeting at York (1831), and presided over the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association in 1836. He became a member of the Linnean Society in 1799. He was for many years, especially after the death of John Ferriar [q. v.], a leader in his profession in Manchester, and the recognised head in all the local literary and scientific societies.
Of the fourteen essays contributed to the Literary and Philosophical Society, he only published a short ‘Note on a Roman inscription found at Manchester’ (Manchester Memoirs, vol. v.). Another essay, ‘On the History of Sculpture to the Time of Phidias,’ was printed after his death.
He died unmarried, on 28 Nov. 1847, at Manchester, leaving property worth over 50,000l., the greater part of which he bequeathed, together with his large library, to the medical department of University College, London. His portrait was engraved by J. R. Jackson, from a painting by W. Scott, belonging to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society.
[Memoir by Dr. W. C. Henry in Trans. of Provincial Med. and Surg. Assoc. 1848, xvi. 77; Manchester Guardian, 1, 4, 8 Dec. 1847, 26 Jan., 13 May, 10 June 1848; Baker's Memorials of a Dissenting Chapel, p. 116; Univ. Coll. Library Cat. 1879.]
HOLME, RANDLE (1571–1655), genealogist, born, probably in Bridge Street, Chester, in 1571, was youngest son of Thomas Holme, a member of the Stationers' Company of Chester, by Elizabeth, his first wife. Holme was entered in the books of the Stationers' Company of Chester as a ‘painter’—possibly an heraldic painter—on 3 June 1598. He was sheriff of Chester in 1615, and mayor 1633–4. He also held the office of deputy to the College of Arms for Cheshire, Shropshire, and North Wales. At the coronation of Charles I he was fined 10l. for not being in attendance. On 19 July 1634 he failed to attend an official visit to Chester paid by the Earl of Arundel; the earl mulcted his ‘deputy’ in a heavy fine payable to the Heralds' College.
