Thomas Holloway

British merchant and investor

• Born: September 22, 1800
• Birthplace: Devonport, Devonshire, England
• Died: December 26, 1883
• Place of death: Tittenhurst, Berkshire, England

Holloway employed his keen sense of the power of advertising to establish one of the foremost patent medicine companies in England. He used the immense fortune gained from this enterprise and from his shrewd investments in stocks for major philanthropic endeavors to support treatment of the mentally ill and women’s education.

Sources of wealth: Sale of products; investments

Bequeathal of wealth: Relatives; educational institution; medical institution

Early Life

Thomas Holloway was born in 1800, the eldest of Thomas and Mary Chellow Holloway’s six children. His father was a merchant who was running a bakery in Plymouth Dock, later renamed Devonport, when Thomas was born. In 1811, the elder Holloway became proprietor of the Turks Head Inn in Penzance, and he subsequently opened a bakery and grocery in the town.

Young Thomas was educated first at Camborne and later in Penzance. In 1816, he began an apprenticeship, most likely with a local druggist. Although he worked for a time in Penzance, by 1828 he had moved to London, where he thought there would be greater opportunities for financial gain. At about the same time, his family also moved to the city.

First Ventures

Holloway initially worked in various commercial positions. Between 1828 and 1836 he spent three years in Roubaix and Dunkirk, France, where he became fluent in French. Upon his return to London he went to work as secretary and interpreter for an import-export firm. In 1837, he made the acquaintance of Felix Albinolo, an Italian entrepreneur who was trying to gain endorsements for a medicinal ointment he had created. Holloway may have attempted to provide Albinolo some assistance, but Albinolo eventually ended up in debtor’s prison and his business failed. Nevertheless, Holloway was convinced that money could be made in patent medicines if products were properly advertised. Using some of his mother’s kitchenware, he created his own ointment, which he began advertising in 1837. Holloway quickly overextended himself, however, and like Albinolo ended up in debtor’s prison. Fortunately, creditors who thought his business had potential bailed him out, and with renewed vigor he reestablished his business.

Mature Wealth

Holloway initially set up shop on the Strand in London. After being released from prison, he expanded his line of offerings from ointments to pills, seeking endorsements from medical professionals and developing promotional materials that stressed the nearly miraculous effects of these remedies. In 1840, he married Jane Driver, who would prove an excellent partner. She understood his need to be constantly at his business, and she willingly accompanied him on calls to prospective distributors and clients. The couple had no children, a fact that had significant impact in later years when Holloway was deciding what to do with the fortune he had accumulated.

Holloway’s prior experience in the import-export industry made him keenly aware that sales could be increased substantially if he could ship his product abroad. In the 1840’s he began an aggressive campaign to establish distributorships worldwide, traveling to Europe to find reliable agents and eventually sending members of his wife’s family to represent his firm in places where he did not travel himself. He could often be seen at the London docks negotiating with ship captains and merchants to take his products aboard their vessels in order to be sold at ports of call. He had labels printed in numerous languages so potential customers could easily identify his products. He even went so far as to produce a pamphlet for missionaries, instructing them on ways to improve the health of the populations they encountered in the jungles of Africa and Asia, emphasizing a regimen that included generous use of his products.

The business grew quite rapidly. By 1851, Holloway had thirty employees on the premises and scores of sales and delivery people on his payroll. He expanded his facilities on the Strand several times before finally moving to a more spacious location on Oxford Street in 1867. A decade later on-site employees numbered more than one hundred, with a corresponding increase in the outside sales and delivery force. Holloway was reported to be a tough taskmaster not only in demanding hard work but also in requiring employees to demonstrate high moral character. At the same time he exhibited concern for his workers, to the point of initiating a form of pension for loyal employees. He was less kind to competitors, even suing his brother Henry in 1850 for marketing products in packaging strikingly similar to that being used by Holloway’s own firm.

By the mid-nineteenth century in England there were dozens of purveyors of patent medicines, each claiming that their “secret formulas” cured numerous ailments. Holloway realized that the key to financial success in this industry lay in advertising, creating what would later be called “brand awareness” among the populace at large. In his first years he spent as much as £5,000 to place notices in newspapers throughout England. That sum seemed remarkably large at the time, but it would pale by comparison to Holloway’s future outlays—£50,000 a year by the 1880’s, paid to newspapers around the globe who carried notices of Holloway’s Pills and Holloway’s Ointments.

By the 1880’s Holloway could justify such an expense because it was the principal reason for his ability to generate profits virtually unheard of in business at the time. Over the years, modest earnings grew rapidly to immense sums by Victorian standards, so that at the height of his company’s production Holloway was realizing a staggering net profit of £50,000 annually. Rather than squander his money on opulent living, Holloway invested in stocks and bonds, diversifying his holdings to include interests in entities as diverse as the Great Indian Railway and Turkish defense funds. He provided well if not lavishly for his wife and her family, purchasing Tittenhurst Park, a grand estate that he made his home, and numerous other properties. His net worth in all probability exceeded £1 million by the 1870’s. In fact, Holloway was wealthy enough to loan money to the government of France in 1871 to finance its war against Prussia. He remained active in his business all his life, although he began to rely more heavily on relatives, especially his brother-in-law George Martin, to carry out a number of business and philanthropic tasks.

Because Holloway had no children, he and his wife began planning early for the disbursement of their fortune upon their deaths. In the 1860’s he became interested in helping the seventh earl of Shaftesbury alleviate the problem of mental illness among the middle classes. His involvement eventually led to his underwriting of the Holloway Sanatorium southwest of London. He was not too busy at work to devote considerable time to supervising construction at the building site. By most estimates, he provided approximately £300,000 for the venture. That alone might have been enough to secure his place among the nineteenth century’s most important philanthropists, but Holloway was not finished with his charitable contributions. Prompted by his wife, he decided to establish a college for women. After her death in 1875, he threw himself into the project with exceptional vigor, eventually pledging in excess of £750,000 to build and endow what would become known as Royal Holloway College, one of England’s first institutions of higher learning for women. During the last two years of his life, he assembled a collection of artwork valued in excess of £80,000 for display at the college because he thought young women should be exposed to the arts as part of their education.

Sadly, Holloway did not live to see the opening of either of the institutions that he established. He died from lung congestion in December, 1883. The first patients were admitted to Holloway Sanatorium in 1885, and the Royal Holloway College was officially opened by Queen Victoria in 1886.

Legacy

Upon his death, the Holloway Sanatorium and Royal Holloway College received the sums not yet paid out from the amounts Holloway had designated for their construction and endowment. His sister-in-law Mary Driver received the bulk of Holloway’s estate, including the business, which survived for nearly half a century, providing income for his heirs and comfort to the millions of customers who found relief in his concoctions. Although developments in medicine have made all-purpose curatives like Holloway’s pills and ointments virtually obsolete, his ventures into philanthropy made a significant impact in two fields: the treatment of mental illness and education for women. From its opening in 1885 until well into the twentieth century, the Holloway Sanatorium met the needs of thousands of mentally ill patients from various social classes. Holloway’s venture into higher education proved even more enduring. Almost from the day its first students entered, the Royal Holloway College became a mainstay of women’s education in England. Additionally, the works of art Holloway assembled during the last years of his life specifically for the college have been recognized as one of the finest collections of Victorian painting in the country.

Bibliography

Anderson, Stuart. “From Pills to Philanthropy: The Thomas Holloway Story.” Pharmaceutical Historian 35, no. 2 (June, 2005): 32-36. Informative sketch of Holloway’s efforts to create and market the pills from which he made a fortune. Also comments on his late-life efforts to distribute his wealth to causes about which he felt passionate.

Cowling, Mary, et al. Paintings from the Reign of Victoria: The Royal Holloway Collection, London. Alexandria, Va.: Art Services, 2008. Includes a lengthy commentary on Holloway’s career and his penchant for collecting art. Also discusses his philosophy for the use of art in education.

Harrison-Barbet, Anthony. Thomas Holloway: Victorian Philanthropist. Rev. ed. Egham, Surrey, England: Royal Holloway University of London, 1994. Monograph providing available details about Holloway’s life in Penzance and London, describing his immense success in the patent medicine industry and his efforts as a philanthropist.

Harte, N. B. The University of London, 1836-1986: An Illustrated History. London: Athlone Press, 1986. Discusses Holloway’s role in creating the Royal Holloway College, including his inspiration, direct involvement in construction, and monetary contributions to the project.

Owen, David. English Philanthropy, 1660-1960. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1964. Contains a discussion of Holloway’s career and his philanthropic endeavors, briefly comparing his efforts with those of other British philanthropists.

Tring, F. C. “Thomas Holloway and His Patent Pills.” Pharmaceutical Historian 7, no. 3 (1977): 6-7. Brief synopsis of Holloway’s career, stressing his achievements as a businessman and detailing the controls he exerted to keep his products in the public eye.