John Holt

(1742-1828)

 
 

John Holt was born in 28 August 1742, with Katherine Manley assisting as midwife, and he was baptized on 27 September in that year at the Parish Church, Whitby. He was the eldest surviving son of John Holt and Martha, née Storm, and was brought up in the Holt House in Baxtergate.

  

 The Holt House, Baxtergate (Now The George Hotel/Rosie O’Grady’s)

 

No doubt as a child he attended services at the Parish Church on Sunday with his parents and siblings in the fine box pew in the South-East transept which had I Holt 1750 proudly painted on its door, an inscription that can still be seen today.

 

View from the Holt Pew

 
Such church attendances were not only a religious duty in a family that took religion very seriously (and frequently veered into dissent), but would also be good for business. In commercial circles Church or chapel membership was particularly effective in displaying integrity[1]. 
John was destined for a life of the sea, and would have learnt his nautical skills over a number of years, beginning by going to sea as a servant to an owner.  In John’s case it seems possible that the owner was none other than his father, as we have a record of him sailing as a Seaman on the Prince of Wales, which was engaged in the Home Service on a tour of duty that lasted between January and December 1760[2], when he was aged 17/18. The ship was owned by his father, and the master was George Potts. He must have had voyages before that, but I have not found a record of them. Certainly he was not on the Prince of Wales in the preceding years, but that it possibly because his father thought it too dangerous for him, as that vessel was then engaged as a transport ship overseas in what has become known as the Seven Years War. It was about this time that John was apprenticed to John Kneebell, Joyner of London[3]. His apprenticeship ended in 1766, when he was 24[4]. This added qualification ensured he would be always employable: good carpenters could readily find employment both on land and on sea.

 The next mention of a sea voyage by John is two years later in 1762, as Master in his own ship, the Royal Briton, which was built the previous year. The Royal Briton was later described in the Lloyds Register[5] as a brig[6] of 350 tons[7], and in a notebook (at the Whitby Museum) as a vessel of 300 tons, 400 tons burthen and able to carry 20 keels of coal.

 
 

A Brig

The Royal Briton was probably a coming of age present from his father, as his brothers Thomas and William received their first ship and command at a similar age. John continued to be Master of the Royal Briton for 13 years, during which time it was mainly engaged in the coal trade between Shields and London[8]. These were busy years for John Holt, and how he managed with being owner and master of the Royal Briton (from 1762) as well as completing his London apprenticeship (finished in 1766) is difficult to imagine. Presumably he spent much of the winter months on the joinery. 

While all this was going on he got married, when he was just 23. He was married on 4 December 1765, at the parish church, Whitby, to the twenty-one year old Mary Millner. The service was taken by Mr Borwick, the curate, and the witnesses were Mary’s younger sister Sarah[9], and the master mariner Robert Boulby[10]. The marriage was by licence, a practice that had become increasingly popular since the beginning of the century. M. Misson[11] describes such marriages: The bridegroom…and the bride…, conducted by their father and mother...and accompanied among others, by two bride-men and two bride-maids, go early in the morning with a licence in their pocket to call up Mr Curate and his clerk, tell him their business, are married with a low voice and the door shut; tip the minister a guinea and the clerk a crown, steal softly out...have a good dinner and return home at night as quietly as lambs. He explains that One of the reasons that they have for marrying secretly, as they generally do in England, is, that thereby they avoid a great deal of expense and trouble; however the practice was also popular among mariners who could afford it, as being away at sea often made it difficult to fulfil the residency requirement for marriage by banns[12]. 

Mary Millner had been baptized in Whitby on 17 June 1745, and was the daughter of Thomas Millner, master mariner, and shipowner. One of the ship’s he owned was the 370-ton ship The Earl of Pembroke which was built by Thomas Fishburn[13] in 1764. The ship was bought from Thomas by the Government for James Cook's first voyage to the South Seas, and was renamed Endeavour. Cook sailed in July 1768, with a crew of 84 men. John and Mary would have been familiar with the Earl of Pembroke, and their parents may well have remembered James Cook from the days when he sailed from Whitby[14].

 

 

The Endeavour Replica in the Thames

 

The first children of John and Mary were:

Martha. Born 5 December 1766, and baptized at Whitby Parish Church on 16 March 1768. She married William Harrison, master mariner, at Whitby on 16 Feb 1795. They had children: Elizabeth Coates (born 1 Jan 1799, who married Thomas Appleby in 1817. They had children Elizabeth Harrison, Christopher Holt, John Holt, and Martha), Mary Holt (born 28 Dec 1800, buried 1 April 1801 aged 10 weeks), and Martha Holt (born 6 March 1803, buried 28 March 1812, aged 9). Martha died  on 7 March 1803, the day after giving birth to her daughter Martha Holt, and was buried on the 11th.

Thomas. Born 4 March 1768, and baptized on the same day as Martha was. He died less than a year later, and was buried on 8 December.

Mary. Born 15 November 1769, and baptized at Whitby Parish Church on the 24^th. On 15 March 1797 she married William Skinner, her father’s first cousin, at Whitby Parish Church. They are both mentioned more fully elsewhere. Mary died 21 June 1843.

John. Born 23 May 1771, and baptized at Whitby Parish Church on 31^st. On 26 May 1795 he married Grace Burbank. He died 25 September 1850, and is mentioned more fully elsewhere. He is generally known as John Holt Junior.

Thomas. Born 12 September 1773, and baptized at Whitby Parish Church on the 25^th. He married Harriet Berry (born 15 November 1787) at St Dunstan’s Stepney on 12 August 1810. They lived in Stepney, and had six children: John, Mary Berry, Thomas, William Skinner, Harriet and Alfred. Alfred died when he was six; but the others all survived to adulthood and married. I have no record of Thomas’ death.

Ann. Born 13 December 1774, and baptized on the 10 January 1775. She died on 17 August 1797, when she was 24, and was buried at the Parish Church, Whitby three days later.

During the years of peace in which the first six of their children were born, the couple seem to have been prosperous.

 
The brig Royal Briton, with John as Master, was making regular journeys between Shields and London. In 1767 his youngest brother William, then only 14, joined the ship as servant. William was again on board in 1768 when the seaman Henry Kersby had an accident on 17 Ot at London when he Fell down in ye hold & hurt his back.[15] John was able to buy another vessel. It was the Elizabeth, a 400-ton[16] ship[17] built at Whitby in 1765 for Thomas Holt (John’s uncle) and named for his wife Elizabeth née Linskell. John owned her in 1776, and possibly that was the first year he did so. In 1777 he was joint owner with Thomas Millner his father-in-law and Thomas Holt his brother of the 254-ton ship Wisk. We know that this ship was 92 feet by 26, had a poop and forecastle.[18]. 

By 1778 John’s father had vacated the house in Baxtergate, and John and Mary were living there[19]. We cannot be sure when his parents moved out, but possibly not as early as John and Mary’s marriage in 1765 (when they would still have had a young twelve-year-old son of their own to look after), but presumably when the young couple’s family began to grow, perhaps in the early 1770s.

 
 

 Interior of the George Hotel, formerly the Holt House, Baxtergate

 

But by 1775 Britain was at war again, when the American colonies revolted - the shootings at Lexington on 19 April being regarded as the first shots of the war.

The logistics of fighting a war in America meant that enormous numbers of merchant ships were required as Transports and Victualling ships so there was money to be made from Government contracts (even though the Government was notoriously tardy about paying). Royal Briton underwent good repairs,[20] John Holt gave the mastership of the brig to William Sleightholm who had been Mate for the previous two years, and the vessel joined the war. Mustering at Portsmouth in December 1776, she was in London on Christmas Day, and later sailed to Quebec, probably as part of the force, comprising HMS Isis, three frigates, three victuallers, and transports carrying the 29^th Regiment which sailed from the Nore on 10 February. This force broke the American siege of Quebec on 6 May when HMS Isis and a frigate reached the city after pushing through the melting ice of the St Lawrence River. We know that Royal Briton was in Quebec shortly afterwards on 10 June. After this event the Americans lost interest in trying to export the revolution to Canada. 

Interestingly the Whitby registers of 1776 record the burial on 12 June of John Whitby a twenty-year old negro man from America. Perhaps he was an American slave who had come to Whitby some time in late 1775 or early 1776, in hope of finding greater freedom in Britain than in America. In the event he found only death; but it would be interesting to know more of his story. 

John Holt himself was trying out his new ship Elizabeth, a bigger and newer vessel than Royal Briton. She was sheathed in 1776, and in the first part of the year John captained her on a voyage to Riga, but in the later part of the year she was, like so many Whitby ships, in the transport service.  In the spring of 1777 Elizabeth, with John as Master, transported members of the 14^th Foot Regiment, leaving New York on 12 February and arriving at Deptford on 25 March, being paid for 1,949 man days[21].

In the latter part of 1777 John Holt was trying out his new acquisition Wisk[22], built and purchased that year. Clearly John preferred to be a hands-on owner, getting to know his vessels through experience. Between 26 June and 2 December he was Master of this ship, on the Baltic trade to St Petersburg[23]. From 1778, with first W Stonehouse and later (from 1782) M Sedgwick (or Sedgworth) as Master she was employed in the transport service up to the end of the war. She was armed with six four-pounder guns, and was owned by J Holt and Co[24]. Between 1777-1779 Royal Briton, also armed with six four-pounder cannon[25], remained in Government Service as a victualling ship with William Sleightholm as Master and Roger Galilee as Mate. Roger took over as Master in 1780, after which Jacob Dunn was Master between 1781 and 1783. 

I have not looked at the full range of Muster Rolls for Elizabeth, so my knowledge of its whereabouts during the war is sketchy. By 1779, John was no longer Master of the ship, though he still owned it. No doubt, with increasing family commitments he thought it wise to retire from an active life at sea; he was 35. The captaincy of the Elizabeth went to Levi Preston between 1779 and 1781, during which the ship continued in the transport service, working out of Cork which, from 1779, was the major depot for the shipment of army provisions from Ireland and which had an agent for transports permanently stationed there. We know that Royal Briton was at New York on 6 June 1778, the 13 and 27  September  and 1 November 1779, and at various times in 1780 in January (17), June (6, 25), July (21, 25), August (5, 14, 24, 27, 31) and September (13, 18, 25, 27). She was in Deptford on October (18-24) and 11 November. By 18 November 1780 she was back in Whitby. The spirit of independence was obviously in the air in New York as the muster rolls record that a number of the crew of the Royal Briton had run: Abner Galley on (6 June 1778), Robert Pearson (25 June 1780), Huntrods Dinsdale and William Jackson (both on 21 July 1780) and John Stokel four days later. Clearly they either thought there were greater prospect for them in America, or they simply wished to get away from the war. Sailors who jumped ship in this way usually had to leave their sea chests with most of their belongings on board so they could slip away without arousing suspicion that were not going to return (though they were often wearing many layers of clothing!).

John Holt was a master mariner;  but he is also described as a "master builder" (ie ship builder) in the parish register for 1780. He is almost certainly the Holt part of the Holt & Barker[26] ship-building partnership which appears in both the 1781 and 1784 editions of Bailey’s Northern Directory. We have no record, however, of any ships that he built in 1780 or thereabouts: it is possible that he built Wisk in 1777. 

In 1780 Royal Briton underwent further repairs[27]. This year she also received new deck and upperworks. Ships in the government service had to be kept in good repair which was expensive, sailors’ wages were rising, and the government rates for ships in the Transport and Victualling service were not raised. As the war dragged on, the government service was growing less profitable for owners, and there was no escape from it. Royal Briton was at Charlestown on 1 June 1780, presumably as part of the force that had been involved in the attack on that city, which surrendered to the British on 12 May that year. In 1781 Royal Briton left Whitby on 29 January and was at Portsmouth in June (25 & 26) and on 4 July. She had upgraded her armaments to six six-pounder cannon[28]. She was in New York on 2 November (when Richard Stonehouse, servant, died) and seems to have overwintered there.[29].  It is possible that the Royal Briton which had £7 and 6 shillings deducted from its owners’ fees because of the loss of eight pairs of stockings in 1781 was John Holt’s vessel[30]. The surrender of Cornwallis on 19 Oct 1781 was effectively the end of the war, though peace would not be signed for another two years. The transport ships were now involved in the process of the army’s withdrawing from America, and of the rescuing of the Loyalists. From 1782 Lloyds Register refers to Royal Briton as a ship rather than as a brig as previously; this means that she must have acquired a third mast. However Lloyds Register records no alterations since the grp (good repairs) of 1780. Perhaps the alteration was done then; perhaps Lloyds Register is (again) inaccurate. The transport Royal Britain which was captured off Gibraltar in May 1782[31] was almost certainly not John Holt’s ship which, on 4 July  of that year was at Savannah, presumably as part of the evacuation. Syrett writes: Every available transport in America, amounting to 11,014 tons of shipping was employed to evacuate Savannah on 11 July 1782.This tonnage proved to be insufficient and…there were not enough vessels to remove all the troops, stores and Loyalists. The troops were evacuated to New York. The transport ships which had been involved in the evacuation of Savannah then had to be reassembled at Charleston for the next one. Royal Briton was sent there, arriving at Charleston by 16 Aug, three months before the final evacuation on 14 December, but was in New York on 8 November. Perhaps she was ferrying troops and supplies to New York in anticipation of the final evacuation. It must have been disheartening for the crews of the vessels, like the Royal Briton, who had been at the capture of Charlestown two years previously, to be here again participating in the evacuation. On November 30 a preliminary peace treaty was signed between Britain and America, this was informal as America had promised her French and Spanish allies not to make a separate peace. However as soon as the news reached America there was an effective end to hostilities.

The massive task of evacuating New York began in April 1783. Because the fighting had stopped this could safely be done in stages, rather than the single event at Savannah and Charleston. This was just as well, as there were enormous numbers of troops, loyalists and supplies to be moved, and when they could be moved depended entirely upon when transport ships, very much in short supply, became available. It was not until 28 November that Carleton was able to report: His Majesty’s troops, and such of the Loyalists as chose to emigrate, were on the 25^th instant, withdrawn from the City of New York, in good order, and embarked without the smallest circumstance of irregularity or misbehaviour of any kind.[32] On John Holt’s Royal Briton, John Trotter, a servant, died on 11 January 1783. By 12 February Royal Briton was in Jamaica and was (still?) there on 3 March. Perhaps she had transported troops there from New York. We have no certain evidence that Royal Briton was involved in the evacuation of New York, but it is unlikely that she was not.

There is a record of supplies delivered to the Royal Briton, Master Jacob Dun, on 10 August 1783, when she was in the transport service, presumably as part of the evacuation of New York, which dragged on for six months. The record is in the form of Receipts of Provisions from Brook Watson Esq Commisary-General for HM Troops. Brook Watson was based at New York. The provisions she received were:                                                      Pork in bar.[barrels] 4442 lbs 

                                Beef  in bar. 9633 lbs     

                                Bread 4993 lb in 115 bread bags 

                                Flour in barr. 9752 lbs          

                                Butter in firkins 1058 ½ lbs 

                                Pease in casks 106 bushels 58 pints 

                                Oatmeal in casks 43 bushels 24 pints                                                 

                                Rum 5 puncheons cont q 566 Galls 

Presumably these were the rations for a ship evacuating soldiers back to Britain. There are two similar surviving receipts for the Elizabeth. The first on the 21 June 1783 for:
                                Pork 11 barrs each 208 lbs

                                Beef 25 barrs each 210 lbs 

                                Bread 99 bags 9,337 lbs

                                Butter 7 firk 460 lbs 

                                Pease 14 barr 70 bush 

                                Oatmeal 1 barr cont 224 lbs

It seems that either the ship was already provided with rum rations, or else this was an alcohol free voyage The second was dated 5 August 1783:

                                7 barr Pork 208 lbs 

                                24 bags bread 411lb 

                                10 f butter 647 lbs 

                                9 barr Oatmeal ea 224 lbs

                                6 puncheons rum cont q 656 galls

The Treaty of Versailles between Britain, America, France and Spain was signed on 3 September. Royal Briton was back in Whitby on 7 Dec 1783, the war was over and lost.  Britain signed a separate peace with Holland on 20 May 1784.

But work must go on, and Royal Briton was back at sea on 26 April 1784, with Ralph Richardson as Master. Unfortunately on 6 December she was lost at or near Hull, possibly on a voyage from Wyburg (Lloyds Register), possibly from Shields (muster). The muster roll records that the captain was drowned, but all the rest of the crew (11 men) were saved. There had been a terrible storm which had lasted from 5^th to the 7^th of December that year, and there is a record of the vessels which were wrecked in that storm, which lists 20 ships from Shields  16 from Sunderland, four from Newcastle, and 14 other vessels (including the Royal Briton). But this report and the muster roll recording her loss were mistaken: this was not the end for Royal Briton, she was repaired, sheathed, classified as E1 and back at work. The muster roll was apparently wrong about the Master too as someone called Richardson (?) was listed as Master in the 1786/7 Lloyds Register on Wyburg-Hull voyages (still with John Holt as owner). The fact that there are no further muster rolls for her, and that she does not appear in the Whitby Ship register Transcripts suggests that she had been re-registered at Hull, though it may be that the was lost in 1787.

 
While the war was being fought, back home at Whitby Mary and John had more children:                            

Sarah. Born 13 February 1777 and baptized on the 5 March.

Margaret. Born 30 June 1779 and baptized 28 July at Whitby Parish Church.

William. Born 31 December 1780, and baptized at Whitby Parish Church on 6 January 1781.

Tragically they all died in 1781 and were buried in the Whitby churchyard: Sarah on 26 January when she was three; Margaret, not yet two, on the 1 February; and William on 21 February, at seven weeks old. Three infant deaths so close to each other looks like the ravages of a disease. It has sometimes been said that parents, in times when infant mortality was common, did not feel the death of a child so keenly as parents do now. This is not borne out by the evidence: William Jones, a Methodist minister whose diary covering the years 1777-1821 has survived, described his feelings at the death of his 18-month-old daughter thus: What a gloom overspreads my soul!..My Soul seems oppressed with a load which no length of time will ever lighten. O my deal little infant, lying dead under this roof! Whose spirit I watched departing yesterday.[33]

John and Mary had one other child during the war years:

Sarah-Margaret. Baptized at Whitby Parish Church 28 June 1783. She survived and later married Thomas Hicks, a widower, and a Dissenting Minister at Collingham, on 23 February 1830 at Whitby Parish Church by Licence.

The end of the war had brought a financial depression to Britain, with numerous soldiers and sailors discharged. It had brought disillusion with the Government of Lord North, which was accused of mishandling the war, and there were calls for reform in many areas of public life.

In 1783 John’s father (also called John) had died, at the age of 65. This would have been regarded as quite an old age to survive to, though he was outdone by his wife Martha (nee Storm) who survived to the age of 98.

The death of his father made John a rich man.  He received a farm and all those lands and hereditaments situate at North Ottrington[34] In essence the rest of John’s deceased father’s not inconsiderable property was divided between his six children (with the sons receiving land, and the daughters additional money instead). John the elder was clearly concerned to be fair by his children, he even states that if my wife's share of her late Father's Real estate shall descend or come to my Eldest Son John, then John must pay an equivalent sum to be divided among his five siblings; and we know from his son's will that the latter did indeed inherit various properties that had originally belonged to Matthew Storm.

John the elder had acquired Harrigate Farm, Northallerton (a property part freehold, part copyhold and part leasehold) after he had made his will. In law this meant that it was not included in the division of his property under the will, but went to John as eldest son and heir at law. However in a conveyance dated 4 November 1784, John agrees to pay £1,200 for the farm which sum was to be divided among the beneficiaries of his father's estate in order to preserve harmony and prevent any disputes or misunderstandings in the family.

This document of conveyance also records the purchase for £60 of the thirtieth part of the New Chapel that John had owned.

 

The New Chapel, Baxtergate

This purchase was made jointly by John and Mary Holt and six other parties: Thomas Holt (John’s brother) and Esther (his wife), William Holt (John’s brother), Margaret Campion (John’s widowed sister), Elizabeth Atty (John’s sister), Mary Richardson (John’s sister) and Christopher (her husband),   and Joseph Holt Gent. (John’s cousin, the son of Thomas Holt and Elizabeth, née Linskill).

John the elder must have been a very wealthy man. He left farms worth about  £11,000, his house in Baxtergate, his ships, parts of ships, and his share in the Dock Company, as well as other real estate. In addition no doubt to a healthy amount of cash, some of which was lent out at interest. It is possible that his estate was worth some £20,000 to £30,000 (ie about £2m in current values)[35].

 John and Mary had further children:

William. Born 9 July 1785, and baptized on the 13^th. He was married on 21 May 1814 to Jane Currey, and they had children Martha (1818-1899) and Mary. He lived in Stockton, where he became a banker in partnership with William Skinner his brother-in-law and ?Atty. The firm was called Skinner, Atty and Holt and was founded in 1815; branches were subsequently opened in Darlington and Barnard Castle.

Emma. Born 14 April 1789. She married William Darley, gentleman, on the 2 January 1811 at Whitby Parish Church by licence. The witnesses were Sarah Holt (presumably her sister Sarah-Margaret) and William Skinner, her brother-in-law.

John also acquired further financial interests in shipping[36]. In 1786 John was the owner (as John Holt and Co) of the 61-ton sloop Skelton Castle which was built in 1764 and lost at sea in 1797. In 1792 John part-owned, with his brother Thomas and his brother-in-law Christopher Richardson, the 321-ton ship Vigilant, which was built that year. Unfortunately she was also lost at sea in 1797. In 1797 he was the registered owner, along with his brother Thomas, of the 13-year-old, 295-ton, Hull-built ship Nelly, which was lost at sea in 1803.

In 1803 John’s mother Martha died and he inherited property from his father that his mother had enjoyed for her life, namely the Messuage in Whitby … with its appurtenances that his father had lived in at the time of his death (presumably the house in Flowergate; though it is possible the Baxtergate house is meant) together with all the  household furniture and implements of household plate linnen china beds and bedding. Also a silver tankard and all the chairs tables and other furniture (china excepted) which shall belong to my [ie his father’s] dining room, and also the chairs bedstead and hangings which shall belong to my best lodging room over the dining room at the time of my decease.

At some time John and Mary had acquired a house in Silver Street, smaller, more convenient, and in a smarter and healthier part of the town. It had a good view over the harbour and a garden across the road. There was also extensive property adjoining the house at the back and towards the coast.

 

The Holt House in Silver Street

 

John’s wife Mary died on 16 April 1803 aged 53, and was buried at Whitby Parish Church.

In the poll book for 1807 John Holt Esq votes for the Hon Henry Lascelles and for the Rt Hon Lord Mitton (ie not for William Wilberforce). He is presumably the John Holt listed as living in Skinner Street in an 1823 directory.

John Holt makes a will dated 10 May 1820. He leaves the house in Skinner Street in which he was living at the time, together with his 30th part of the New Chapel at Baxtergate with the Seat or Pew therein set apart for my use to his only unmarried daughter Sarah Margaret for her use until her marriage. After her marriage, they become part of his estate.

He leaves to his son John the house in Baxtergate which his parents had occupied). John also receives his father's part shares in various properties in Stainton Dale, Robin Hood's Bay and Fylingdales which formerly belonged to my late Grandfather Matthew Storm deceased. Additionally he inherits the farm in North Otterington (occupied by Michael Trowsdale) which he had received in turn from his father (and now valued at £5,400; it was valued in 1782 at £2,700), and also Harrogate Farm in the Parish of Northallerton late in the tenure of Nathaniel Russel deceased (and which is valued at £2,300).

John's son William receives a farm in Longnewton, County Durham (valued at £3,400). His grand-daughter, Elizabeth Coates Appleby, wife of Thomas Appleby and daughter of his late daughter Martha Harrison is given £700. The rest of the estate, including his parts and shares of ships, is divided among his three surviving sons (John, Thomas and William) and his three surviving daughters (Mary Skinner, Sarah Margaret and Emma Darley) so they all received equal amounts - taking into account the properties at the values given. He stipulates  that part of Emma's share should be in investments, of which she should enjoy the interest during her lifetime, the capital going to her children after her decease.

John adds codicils on 8/3/1822, 9/9/1823, and 17/2/1824, making minor alterations. The second codicil is interesting because, apart from raising Sarah-Margaret's rent on the Skinner Street house from £18 to £24 per annum, he stipulates that during her occupancy she shall Keep the Premises in good & genteel tenantable repair & condition in a similar manner to that in which I have been accustomed to do.

If all the six children did receive legacies of equal amounts, they must all have had at least £7,700 each (the stated value of some of the properties left to John). This would make the value of John's estate (taking into account the bequest to Elizabeth Coates Appleby) somewhere in the region of £47,000 or more. This is a considerable amount of money. If we may turn to Jane Austen for comparison, it is in excess of Emma's fortune of £30,000. Such a sum would generate an income of over £2,000 at the usual contemporary rate of 5%. This was Colonel Brandon's income, and one which Marianne thought a competence, in that it would provide the necessities of life such as servants, a carriage, hunters, etc. Elinor thought £1,000 pa was wealth. However, the Holts were businessmen, and not planning simply to live off the dividends of invested capital.

John died on the 6 July 1828, a few weeks short of his 86^th birthday. He was buried with his wife in Whitby Parish Churchyard. The gravestone of John and Mary is still legible, though it has almost certainly been repaired and re-cut.

 

 Inscription of the tomb of John and Mary Holt

 
The inscription also records their children Martha (Harrison), Ann, Thomas, Sarah, Margaret and William, and their granddaughter Martha.  
Next to it is the memorial stone of their son John (John Holt junior), his wife Grace and their daughter Sarah-Margaret Buchannan.