Family and Education

bap. 4 Oct. 1661, 1st s. of Sir Richard Holloway, j.K.b. 1683-July 1688, of Oxford by Alice, da. of John Smith, maltster, of Kennington, Berks. educ. I. Temple, entered 1675, called 1682; St. John’s, Oxf. 1676. m. 1da. suc. fa. 1699.1

Offices Held

Recorder, Wallingford 1683-1710, freeman 1685; j.p. Berks. 1685-?89, Oxon. by 1700-?d.; bencher, I. Temple 1708, reader 1712, treas. 1717.2

Biography

Holloway came from a family of lawyers settled in Oxford by Tudor times. His father, a fellow of New College, was expelled by the parliamentary visitors in 1648. After appearing for the prosecution in the trial of Stephen College, the ‘Protestant joiner’, he was made a judge in 1683, and concurred in the death sentence on Algernon Sidney two months later. Holloway succeeded his father as recorder of Wallingford and was confirmed in office under the new charter of 1684. A Tory, he was returned for the borough in 1685, though some of the inhabitants petitioned against the election. A moderately active Member of James II’s Parliament, he was appointed to the committee of elections and privileges and to two others, both for private bills. Holloway’s father agreed with the defence of the Seven Bishops, and was dismissed by James immediately after their acquittal, but this did not save him from incurring the displeasure of Parliament in 1689. Holloway is unlikely to have stood again, though he accepted the Revolution and became a j.p. after his father’s death. He was buried in the Temple Church on 13 Feb. 1721, the only member of his family to sit in Parliament.3

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Authors: Leonard Naylor / Geoffrey Jaggar

Notes

• 1. Wood’s City of Oxford (Oxf. Hist. Soc. xxxvii), 200; Wood’s Life and Times (Oxf. Hist. Soc. xxi), 250; PCC 25 Noel.
• 2. CSP Dom. 1683-4, p. 71; J. K. Hedges, Hist. Wallingford, ii. 245; Berks. RO, Wallingford borough statute bk. 1648-1766, f. 128; Bodl. Carte 79, f. 681.
• 3. Vis. Oxon. (Harl. Soc. v), 290; M. Toynbee and P. Young, Strangers in Oxford, 53; Visitors’ Reg. (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxix), 144; Wallingford borough statute bk. f. 127; CJ, ix. 716; HMC Lords, n.s. ii. 77, 88; Grey, ix. 344; Temple Church Recs. 37.