Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Holliday, John
HOLLIDAY, JOHN (1730?–1801), author, was admitted a student of Lincoln's Inn on 5 May 1759 and was called to the bar on 23 April 1771. He had an extensive practice as a conveyancer, was a fellow of the Royal Society, and an active member of the Society of Arts. Holliday died at his house in Great Ormonde Street, London, on 9 March 1801, aged 71. A fine portrait of him, by Romney, is in the possession of Lord Churston at Lupton House, Brixham. Holliday married the daughter of Mr. Harrison of Dilhorne Hall, Staffordshire, an attorney-at-law, by whom he had an only child Eliza Lydia, who married on 2 June 1791 Francis Buller-Yarde, M.P. for Totnes, afterwards Sir Francis Buller-Yarde, bart., and died on 1 Nov. 1851, aged 77. Holliday is said to have left in manuscript a translation of the first eight books of Virgil in hexameter verse, and a valuable collection of conveyancing precedents. He was the author of the slight memoir of Owen Salusbury Brereton [q. v.], which appeared in the 19th vol. of the ‘Transactions of the Society of Arts’ (pp. iv–vii), and of some lines on a ‘Favourite Norfolk Bantam’ in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ for 1800 (vol. lxx. pt. ii. pp. 1081–2). He also published:
- ‘The Life of Lord Mansfield,’ London, 1797, 4to.
- ‘Monody on the Death of a Friend’ [Thomas Gilbert of Cotton, Staffordshire, M.P.], anon., 1798.
- ‘The British Oak, a Poem, dedicated to Horatio, Lord Nelson, in grateful remembrance of his Lordship's signal Victory near the mouth of the Nile,’ anon., London, 1800, 4to.
[Nichols's Lit. Anecdotes, ix. 194–5, 203–4, 235; Gent. Mag. 1791 pt. i. p. 582, 1801 pt. i. pp. 283–4, 1851 pt. ii. 670; Foster's Peerage, 1883, s.n. Churston, p. 154; Lincoln's Inn Registers; Brit. Mus. Cat.]