He was born in
Birmingham into an old
Staffordshire family. He was educated at
King Edward's College, Birmingham, under
Francis Jeune (afterwards bishop of Peterborough), and subsequently under
James Prince Lee (afterwards bishop of Manchester). He proceeded to
Trinity College, Cambridge, and in his first year of residence, 1842, gained the first Bell university scholarship. He graduated B.A. in 1845, being senior classic, and junior optime in the mathematical tripos, and was fellow of Trinity College from 1847 to 1854; he was LL.D. in 1863. In 1848, he was ordained deacon, and took priest's orders in 1859. He discharged the duties of assistant tutor and classical lecturer of his college from 1848 until 1853, when he was appointed vice-principal of
Cheltenham College, and continued in that post until 1858. From 1858 to 1883, he was headmaster of
Queen Elizabeth's School, Ipswich. In 1890, he was appointed by the crown to a fellowship of the university of London, in which he had been classical examiner from 1869 till 1874, and examiner in Greek from 1886 till 1890. In 1892 the degree of Litt.D. was conferred on him by Dublin University. He died on 1 Dec. 1896, at 20 Redcliffe Square, London, in his seventy-fifth year, and was buried on 5 December in the eastern side of
Highgate Cemetery. In addition to several school editions of portions of
Cicero,
Thucydides,
Xenophon and
Plutarch, he published an expurgated text of
Aristophanes with a useful
onomasticon (re-issued separately, 1902) and larger editions of
Cicero's
De officiis (revised ed., 1898) and of the
Octavius of
Minucius Felix (1853). He married Letitia Lofft and was the father of Brig.-Gen. Sir
Capel Lofft Holden. ==Works==