John Holmes (schoolmaster)
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John Holmes (born 1702 or 1703, died Holt, Norfolk, 22 December 1760), was an 18th century schoolmaster and writer on education, Master of Gresham's School in Norfolk.
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[edit] Life
Holmes is described in a 1729 broadsheet of his Latin verses as ex schola Holtensis.
In 1729, the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers, governors of Gresham's School, Holt, appointed Holmes headmaster with effect from 1730. This was an unusual appointment, as he was not a clergyman.
Holmes was a successful headmaster, teaching classical languages, oratory and drama, and reversed the school's decline under his predecessors. He soon found the need to improve on the teaching materials he had inherited, and expanded his career by publishing textbooks.
At Gresham's he pioneered the teaching of modern languages, geography, and astronomy.
According to an advertisement in his Latin Grammar of 1732, Gresham's School under him taught
Arithmetic in all its parts, Bookkeeping by Double Entry... the Use of Globes and writing in all the hands used in Great Britain
Holmes's headship was applauded by the Fishmongers' Company.
Holmes answered criticical pamphlets aimed at his Greek Grammar in letters to the press under the name Patroclus. The mathematician Thomas Simpson came out in his support.
He died at the age of fifty-seven and was buried at Holt.
[edit] Books published
Holmes's works include:
- A New Grammar of the Latin Tongue... freed from the many obscurities, defects, superfluities, and errors, which render the common grammar an insufferable impediment to the progress of education (1732, thirteenth edition 1788)
- A Greek Grammar (1735, seventh edition by 1771)
- History of England, Performed by the Gentlemen of the Grammar School... at their Christmas breaking up (drama, published in Latin and English, 1737)
- The Art of Rhetorick made easy... to meet the needs of the time when schoolboys are expected to be led, sooth'd and entic'd to their studies … rather than by force and harsh discipline drove, as in days of yore (1738)
- Rhetorick Epitomiz'd, whereby the principles of the whole art may be learned in an hour (1738)
- Clavis grammaticalis... or, Examination of the Latin and Greek Grammars (1739)
- The Constellations Reformed (drama, 1741)
- A French Grammar (1741)
- The Grammarian's Geography (1751)
- Astronomy Ancient and Modern (1751)
- The Grammarian's Arithmetic: a Compendious Treatise of the Art of Ciphering (1755, advertised but apparently not published)
[edit] Family
Holmes's family background is unknown. His wife was called Jane Holmes and died in 1767. Their daughter Jane married John Burrell, Rector of Letheringsett and became the mother of John Burrell, a lepidopterist.
[edit] References
- Holmes, John (1702/3–1760), schoolmaster and writer on education by David Stoker in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
- The Grammarians' Battleground: controversies surrounding the publication of John Holmes' Greek grammar by D. Stoker in Paradigm: the Journal of the Textbook Colloquium, volume 17 (1995), pages 1–14
