Nat Gould

John Hollis 1742-1824

John Hollis was the son of Isaac Hollis.

He was born in the family home in the old Elizabethan house in Easton Street, High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire. He was trained in the principles of Protestant Nonconformity, and received a liberal education.

He knew many of was of the literary figures of his day, and was a good friend to many of them. William Godwin in his 1796 Diary noted that he first met him in 1782 (1). John Hollis was particularly close to the celebrated Dr. Samuel Parr. In Parr’s catalogue of his valuable and extensive library, he mentions that John Hollis had given him a copy of his book entitled “An Apology” in 1809, and that in the summer of 1812 he sent him copies of his other works. He is quoted as having said that “He is confessedly an unbeliever, but he never writes profanely; he is charitable and respectful in his judgment upon the character of Christians; he devotes his time and his fortune to doing good; and, be his errors what they may, I am bound to by the principles and spirit of Christianity to love and honour such a moral agent as Mr. Hollis”. He considered him “one of the most serious, upright, and benevolent of human beings”, and that “whatsoever were the errors of Hollis, he supported them with much ability, and without any taint of acrimony or profaneness” (2).

Another friend was the artist John Opie, Professor of Painting in the Royal Academy. Opie painted a fine portrait of John Hollis, which was engraved by Charles Warren. The engraving so delighted him that he exclaimed in warm admiration “Well, well, I declare we are all immortalized; yes, all of us are immortalized.” Samuel Parr went on the relate that “His charity towards every class was commensurate with the dictates of his liberal soul, which ever devised liberal things, so that it may be justly said of him as of the patriarch Job, ‘When the ear heard him, then it blessed him; and when the eye saw him, it gave witness to him, because he delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him. The blessing of him that was ready to perish came down upon him, and he caused the widow's heart to sing for joy.”

The literary works of John Hollis include:

Hints and Essays, Theological and Moral by a Lay Man, 1775.
An Apology for the Disbelief of Revealed Religion, 1801.
Sober and Serious Reasons for Scepticism as it concerns Revealed Religion
Free Thoughts (occasioned by Dr. Paley’s Reply to Hume)
Hypercritical Strictures on certain passages in the Critical Review (3)
A Letter to a Friend
The Reflections of a Solitary
Miscellaneous Poems (4)

John Hollis died on 26 November 1824 in his 81st year of his age. His coffin was placed in a stone case, and interred in the nave of the parish church of High Wycombe. A neat marble plaque in the north aisle reads “To the memory/of/John Hollis, Esq.,/Who during a long life, unremittingly/practised the benevolent virtues of his ancestors./He expired at his residence in this town,/on the 26th day of Nov. 1824./aged 81./”He delivered the poor that cried, the fatherless, and him that had none to help him (5).”

(1) The entry on Timothy Hollis suggests that John Hollis is often (but certainly not always) referred to after 1790 (and possibly before) as plain "Hollis", as well as appearing as "J. Hollis".
(2) The Early History and Antiquities of Wycombe in Buckinghamshire J. Parker (1878) pages 165 and 166.
(3) This was a rejoinder to statements made in Memoirs of Thomas Brand Hollis by John Disney, wrongly asserting that he had quarrelled with Thomas Brand Hollis about the Will of Thomas Hollis 1720-1774 by which he alienated his fortune away from the Hollis family in bequeathing it to his friend Thomas Brand who then incorporated Hollis into his name.
(4) This was a small volume published anonymously by “By a young man”. John Hollis in later life, according to Samuel Parr, remarked that “these poems were the production of a simple young man indeed.”
(5) The Early History and Antiquities of Wycombe in Buckinghamshire J. Parker page 126.