George Holloway

I have a long day ahead, having already had a preliminary meeting all morning with the chairs of all the town council's various committees. We were gathered to discuss the projected budget for the next financial year and had to examine the expenditure of each area of the council's activities and commitments.

After three hours we all seemed in general agreement and positive about next year. The annual cycle of council activities is complicated but vital for the oversight of what our staff and the councillors have to do. Tonight at 6pm, I will chair an unofficial meeting for all councillors to explain the projected budget and listen to their comments and possibly adjust the budget if there are any issues that they think we haven't considered. Immediately afterwards at 7-30pm, we will have a formal Full Council meeting to attend to any regular business which is on the agenda. I expect I may be home just after 10pm.

As I walked from the council offices down to the canal towpath to head home, I spotted George Holloway as he stand on a big plinth overlooking one of the main roads into the town centre. He was an important figure in the town's history, but somehow the site of this statue seems inappropriate, a bit stranded beside this building, rather out of view of the general public.

I still had the borrowed wide-angle lens so I thought I would go up close and record him. Drizzling rain was falling out of the grey gloom above. When I got up close, which was quite difficult as access there is very restricted, I noticed that someone has hung a small child's plastic figure on his right hand, demonstrating great endeavour, which I expect he would have approved of.

The plinth supporting his statue reads:
George Holloway
He was the founder of the Mid-Gloucester Working Men's Conservative Association Benefit Society and represented this division in Parliament from 1886 t0 1892.

For nearly forty years he took a leading part in every political and social movement for the welfare of Stroud.

This statue was erected by the members of the above Society and other admirers.
MDCCCXCIV


He was obviously one of those enlightened Victorian employers, as this potted history shows. I wonder how many contemporary businessmen feel the same way.

George Holloway was born in 1825 in Hampshire. At an early age he and his parents moved to Stroud, where he and his brother co-founded Holloway Bros, a clothing manufacturer of ready-wear-clothing. A successful turning point in business for the brothers was with utilisation of steam-powered sewing machines. It was believed that Holloway & Co were the first in the world to 'sew by steam'.

As one of Stroud's largest employers at the time, Holloway took an interest in his employees. It concerned him that the people who worked for him had nothing to fall back on in times of need, sickness or ill health and that once they retired they had no income to live off. So he devised a scheme where, for a small contribution, his workers were provided with sick pay when ill and could build up a capital fund for use at retirement.

He formulated his ideas into an essay and in 1878 entered a national competition run by MP for Bradford, Mr W E Forster. Although he didn't win, his idea resulted in the establishment of the first Holloway Friendly Society -'The Mid Gloucester Working Men's Conservative Benefit Association', a society that provided sick pay and a saving scheme for workers.