Background
The son of Thomas Holme, farmer and mercer, he was born at Kendal in Westmorland.
The son of Thomas Holme, farmer and mercer, he was born at Kendal in Westmorland.
After attending Sedbergh School, he spent two years at the Manchester Academy, and then studied at the university of Göttingen and university of Edinburgh. He graduated Doctor of Medicine
At the university of Leyden in December 1793. Early in 1794 Holme began practice in Manchester, and was shortly afterwards elected one of the physicians to the infirmary there. He joined the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, and was one of its vice-presidents from 1797 to 1844, when he succeeded John Dalton as president
He was one of the founders of the Portico Library, and its president for twenty-eight years.
He was the first president of the medical section of the British Association at its inaugural meeting at York (1831), and presided over the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association in 1836. He was for many years, particularly after the death of John Ferriar, a leader in the medical profession in Manchester, and in the local literary and scientific societies.
Holme died unmarried, on 28 November 1847, at Manchester, leaving property worth over £50,000. Most of it he bequeathed, together with his library, to the medical department of University College, London.
He became a member of the Linnean Society in 1799.