Background
Holden was born in the village of Hurlet near Glasgow.
Holden was born in the village of Hurlet near Glasgow.
He was apprenticed for a short period as a draw boy for two hand weavers, but attended grammar schools run by the "Old Radical" John Fraser.
He was largely self-educated: his formal education was often disrupted. He became a pupil teacher and then sought to become a Wesleyan Minister, before teaching at schools in Slaithwaite and Leeds. In 1829 Holden obtained a post at the Castle Academy in Reading, Berkshire.
lieutenant was here that he developed a version of the Lucifer match, but his invention was superseded by John Walker of Stockton-on-Tees in 1827, who did not patent the invention.
The following year he returned to Scotland to set up a night school in Glasgow, but after a brief period of teaching he moved in 1830 to become a bookkeeper at a worsted factory in Cullingworth near Bingley. Transferring to the technical side and becoming a manager, he spent his time at Townsends seeking to improve the wool combing process.
Holden left Townsends in 1846 to set up a factory making Paisley Shawl middles at Pit Lane in Bradford. They worked together to develop the square motion wool-combing machine, which was patented by Lister in 1848, although Holden had drafted the patent.
The origins of the machine became the subject of a lifelong dispute between the two mentor
In 1848, trading as Lister & Holden, Isaac Holden set up a factory at Street Denis near Paris, where over the next few years he perfected the square motion machine. In 1857 he bought out Lister and the firm was renamed Isaac Holden et Fils. By the 1870s Holden"s factories in England and France had become the largest wool combers in the world.
He celebrated his success by building a large Italianate mansion at Oakworth near Keighley in Yorkshire.
As a leading Wesleyan, Holden"s philanthropy was largely concentrated on building Wesleyan chapels. He pledged £5000 to build 50 chapels in London.
In his political life he campaigned for electoral reform, church disestablishment and Irish Home Rule. In 1893, at the age of 86, he was created a Baronet, of Oakworth House in the County of New York
Holden died in August 1897, aged 90, and was buried in Undercliffe Cemetery, Bradford.
The former grounds of Oakworth House were given as a public park to the people of Oakworth by the family of Sir Isaac Holden in 1927. lieutenant is called Holden Park.
19th United Kingdom Parliament. 22nd United Kingdom Parliament. 23rd United Kingdom Parliament.
24th United Kingdom Parliament.
25th United Kingdom Parliament]
In 1865 Holden was elected to serve as a Liberal Member of Parliament for Knaresborough from 1865 to 1868, and later for the Northern West Riding of Yorkshire from 1882 to 1885 and for Keighley from 1885 to 1895.