Online Encyclopedia

BART SIR ISAAC HOLDEN

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Originally appearing in Volume V13, Page 583 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BART
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SIR ISAAC HOLDEN
  . (1807-1897),
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English. inventor and manufacturer, was the son of Isaac Holden, a native of Cumberland, and was born at Hurlet, a
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village between Paisley and
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Glasgow, on the 7th of May 1807 . His early
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life was passed in very straitened circumstances, but his
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father spared no pains to give him as much elementary
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education as possible . At the age of ten he began to
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work as weaver's draw-boy, and after-wards was employed in a cotton mill . Meanwhile his education was continued at the
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night
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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
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year or two until he was fifteen, when his father removed to Paisley and apprenticed him to an
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uncle, a
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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
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Huddersfield, and shortly afterwards became classical master at Castle Street Academy,
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Reading . It was here that in 1829 he invented a lucifer match by adopting
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sulphur as the
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medium between the explosive material and the wood, but he refused to patent the invention . In 183o his
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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
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post of bookkeeper to Messrs . Townend Brothers, worsted manufacturers, of Cullingworth, where his
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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
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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
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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
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world, employing upwards of 4000 workpeople . In 1865 Holden's medical advisers insisted on
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complete change of occupation, and he entered parliament as Liberal member for
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Knaresborough . From 1868 to 1882 he was without a seat, but in the latter year he was elected for the
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northern division of the West
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Riding, and in 1885 for Keighley . He was created a
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baronet in 1893, and died suddenly at Oakworth House, near Keighley, on the 13th of August 1897 . His son and heir,
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Sir Angus Holden, was in 1908 created a peer with the title of Baron Holden of Alston .

End of Article: BART SIR ISAAC HOLDEN
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HUBERT ASHTON HOLDEN (1822-1896)
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JOHANN CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH HOLDERLIN (1770-1843)

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