BART

See also:

• SIR

SIR

See also:

• ISAAC (Hebrew for " he laughs," on explanatory references to the name, see ABRAHAM)

ISAAC

See also:

• HOLDEN, HUBERT ASHTON (1822-1896)
• BART SIR ISAAC HOLDEN

HOLDEN  . (1807-1897), English. inventor and manufacturer, was the son of Isaac Holden, a native of Cumberland, and was born at Hurlet, a village between Paisley and Glasgow, on the 7th of May 1807 . His early life was passed in very straitened circumstances, but his father spared no pains to give him as much elementary education as possible . At the age of ten he began to work as weaver's draw-boy, and after-wards was employed in a cotton mill . Meanwhile his education was continued at the night schools, and from time to time, as funds allowed, he was taken from work and sent to the grammar-school, to which he at last went regularly for a year or two until he was fifteen, when his father removed to Paisley and apprenticed him to an uncle, a shawl-weaver there . This proving too much for his strength, in 1823 he became assistant teacher in a school at Paisley, and in 1828 he was appointed mathematical teacher in the Queen's Square Academy, Leeds . At the end of six months he was transferred to Lingard's grammar school, near Huddersfield, and shortly afterwards became classical master at Castle Street Academy, Reading . It was here that in 1829 he invented a lucifer match by adopting sulphur as the medium between the explosive material and the wood, but he refused to patent the invention . In 183o his health again failed, and he returned to Scotland, where a Glasgow friend set up a school for him . After six months, however, he was recommended for the post of bookkeeper to Messrs . Townend Brothers, worsted manufacturers, of Cullingworth, where his interest in machinery soon led to his transfer from the counting-house to the mill . There his experiments led him to the invention of his square motion wool-comber and of a process for making genappe yarns, a patent for which was taken out by him in conjunction with S .

C .

Lister (Lord Masham) in 1847 . The firm of Lister & Holden, which established a factory near Paris in 1848, carried on a successful business, and in 1859, when Lister retired, was succeeded by Isaac Holden and Sons, which became the largest wool-combing business in the world, employing upwards of 4000 workpeople . In 1865 Holden's medical advisers insisted on complete change of occupation, and he entered parliament as Liberal member for Knaresborough . From 1868 to 1882 he was without a seat, but in the latter year he was elected for the northern division of the West Riding, and in 1885 for Keighley . He was created a baronet in 1893, and died suddenly at Oakworth House, near Keighley, on the 13th of August 1897 . His son and heir, Sir Angus Holden, was in 1908 created a peer with the title of Baron Holden of Alston .