ROMANCE OF A PEERAGE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 276, 18 May 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

ROMANCE OF A PEERAGE.

DEATH OF LORD HOLDEX. The dentil occurred at York at the end of March of Lord Holden, soil of the man who invented lucifer matches, and head of a well-known Bradford linn of wool-combers. How the Holden family rose to noble rank is one of "the romances of Yorkshire industry. Isaac Holden, father of the late peer, was the son of a pitman who recognised the value of education. Thus young Isaac, with his own industry and his father's encouragement, set himself to learn Latin. Greek, mathematics, physics and chemistry. For some years, also, he was an assistant teacher. Then a firm in the woollen trade at Keighley took him into their service, and here his remarkable natural ability as an inventor found scope in the invention of the useful lucifer. According to the "Encyclopedia Britanthe first really practical friction matches were made in England in 1827 by a Stockton-on-Tees chemist named Walker. They consisted of wooden splints or sticks of cardboard coated ■with sulphur and tipped with a mixture of sulphide of antimony, chloride of potash and gum. With each box, which was retailed at a shilling, there were supplied a folded piece of glass paper, the folds of which were to be tightly pressed together while the match was drawn between them. The same idea occurred to Isaac Holden independently two and a-half years later. lie became a partner in the firm at Keighley. afterward- founding the great business that bears his name. He became very wealthy and a baronet, dying in VS'.IT oil his ninety-first birthday. His -on. .\ugu-. who was born ill 1831, succeeded to lite baronetcy, being already a well-known Yorkshire M.P.. and having filled the ollice of Mayor of Bradford four times. In 11)08 Sir Angus llolden was (iiade a peer. lie is succeeded in the baronetcy by his son, Ernest lllingworih Holden, who recently completed his fortv-lifth vear.