Thomas Holloway

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Thomas Holloway (September 22, 1800 - December 26, 1883) was a patent medicine vendor and philanthropist from England.

Holloway was born of humble parents in Devonport, in 1800. Until the age of 28, he lived in Penzance, where his father, once a warrant officer in a militia regiment, became the landlord of 'The Turks Head'. On completing his education Thomas assisted his parents and brother in the family bakers shop. He then moved to London (later followed by his family), where he met an Italian, Felix Albinolo, from whom he got the idea of producing an ointment which would carry his name around the world. He was soon very successful and added pills to his range of products. The secret of his enormous success in business was due mainly to advertising, in which Holloway had great faith. Holloway's first newspaper announcements appeared in 1837, and by 1842 his yearly expenses for publicity had reached over £5,000 (GBP). By the time of his death, he was spending over £50,000 a year on advertising his products. The sales of his products made Holloway a multi-millionaire, and one of the richest men in Britain at the time. Holloway's products were said to be able to cure a whole host of ailments, though scientific evaluation of them after his death showed that none of them contained any ingredients which would be considered to be of any medicinal value.

Holloway is best remembered for the institutions which he built in England. Firstly the Holloway Sanatorium in Virginia Water, Surrey. And secondly Royal Holloway College, a college of the University of London located a short distance away from the Sanatorium in Egham, Surrey. Both were designed by William Henry Crossland and inspired by the Château de Chambord in the Loire Valley, France, and were founded by Holloway as "Gifts to the Nation". Holloway claimed that it was his wife, Jane, who died in 1875, who inspired him to found the college, which was a women-only college until 1965. Holloway also paid over £80,000 to acquire 77 Victorian era paintings which he donated to the College at the time of its founding. Most of these pieces of art still belong to the college, and remain on display today in the college's Picture Gallery.

A philanthropic and somewhat eccentric donor (he had an unconcealed prejudice against doctors, lawyers and parsons), Holloway died of congestion of the lungs at Sunninghill in 1883.