the last twenty years. Instead of trying to break the spirit of offenders by harsh punishments, it is now sought to raise them above the level of their old associations and to give them a sense of pleasure and pride in honest work. In 1910 Holmes was sent to the United States as the British representative at the Penological Congress.
The rest of Holmes's life was devoted to philanthropy of his own choosing. In 1904, before he left the police courts, he founded the Home Workers' Aid Association, which rapidly developed into an important undertaking. To use his own description: ‘It is not a trade union, but a union of home workers (women), employers, and the public.’ Its objects were generally to improve the conditions under which home workers live, and to give them an opportunity of enjoying one good holiday every year, towards which they make a reasonable contribution, and for this purpose ‘to establish and maintain homes of rest for home workers needing rest and recreation’. It is difficult for ordinary people to realize the condition of home workers before the establishment (1909) of trades boards. In a pamphlet written in 1920 on behalf of Holmes's association, Mr. William Pett Ridge wrote: ‘The nation was startled to find that a woman and her daughter, of Islington, costume machinists, buying their own thread and using their own sewing machine, earned 1s. 10d. each in a day of 14 hours; that a maker of artificial flowers in Bethnal Green, working 16 hours out of the 24, managed to gain 1¼d. per hour; that other women, engaged in making boxes, or tooth-brushes, or babies' bonnets, working similarly from break of dawn until the light failed, were able to obtain similar emoluments.’ It was this state of things which Holmes, with characteristic shrewdness and sympathy, set himself to redress. In 1910 he was able to establish ‘Singholm’, a fine house with flower and fruit gardens at Walton-on-the-Naze, where forty women during their fortnight's holiday may enjoy fine air, good food, clean rooms, and the rare privilege of having nothing to do.
Besides his police-court experiences and various magazine articles Holmes wrote Known to the Police (1908), London's Underworld (1912), and Psychology and Crime (1912). He died in London 26 March 1918.
[Obituary notice (by the present writer) in The Times, 27 March 1918.]
HOLROYD, Sir CHARLES (1861–1917), painter-etcher and director of the National Gallery, London, the eldest son of William Holroyd, merchant, of Leeds, by his wife, Lucy, daughter of Henry Woodthorpe, of Aveley, Essex, was born at Leeds 9 April 1861. He was educated at Leeds grammar school and also, since he was intended for the career of a mining engineer, at the Yorkshire College of Science (afterwards Leeds University) until in 1880 he went to the Slade School of Fine Art at University College, London, where Alphonse Legros [q.v.] was then professor. William Strang [q.v.], slightly his senior, was his most distinguished contemporary at the school, and these were the two students on whom the style and teaching of Legros made the strongest impression. After winning many prizes and acting from 1885 to 1889 as an assistant teacher at the Slade School, Holroyd gained a travelling scholarship, and during two years spent in Italy (1889–1891) acquired an intimate knowledge of the art, architecture, scenery, and language of the country, for which he retained throughout his life the warmest affection. He made many etchings during his student days, but they were of little merit compared with his later work. He was elected a fellow of the Society of Painter-Etchers in 1885, and thereafter (except in 1890) was a regular exhibitor at the Society's gallery, contributing all his best work on copper or zinc to its annual exhibitions. He took the keenest interest in the affairs both of this society and of the Art Workers' Guild, of which he became a member in 1898 and master in 1905. In 1891 he married a former student of the Slade School, Fannie Fetherstonhaugh, daughter of the Hon. John Alexander Macpherson, of Melbourne, at one time premier of Victoria. Holroyd and his wife spent about three years (1894–1897) in Italy; from 1897 to 1903 they lived at Epsom.
Between 1885 and 1895 Holroyd exhibited seven pictures at the Royal Academy, and contributed to other exhibitions, such as that of the International Society of Painters and Gravers. He occasionally painted portraits, and an altar-piece by him, ‘The Adoration of the Shepherds’, of which he made an etching in 1900, is in Aveley church. But he was not a good colourist, in spite of his warm appreciation of the Venetian school, nor a thorough master of the technique of oil-painting. Some of his water-colour sketches are in the Tate Gallery. His etched work, amounting to 286 numbers [Illustrated Catalogue by Campbell Dodgson in the Print Collector's
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