Career
Holland made his first appearance on the stage in the title role of Oroonoko at Drury Lane in 1755, John Palmer, Richard Yates and Susanna Cibber being in the cast. He played under David Garrick, and was the original Florizel in the latter"s adaptation of Shakespeare"s The Winter"s Tale. Holland died from smallpox at the age of 36.
He did not marry.
He was engaged to the actress Jane Pope, but she broke off the engagement when she found him boating at Richmond with the actress Sophia Baddeley. Garrick thought highly of him, and wrote a eulogistic epitaph for his monument in Street Nicholas Church, Chiswick.