Stanley Holland, 1867–1936
Engineer, Benefactor
Edward Stanley Holland grew up in Leominster and went on to work for the Town Corporation.
Unfortunately he embezzled money from the Corporation and was given the choice of jail or emigration. He chose the latter.
In America he found employment as a Civil Engineer and went on to make his fortune.
He gave substantial sums of money to his old town to buy playing fields and supported the Priory Church and Cottage Hospital. He became the first Freeman of the Borough of Leominster.
Stanley Holland was born in Orleton in 1867, but his family moved to Leominster, where his father kept the “White Horse” in West Street. He attended Lucton School, and sang in the choir of the Priory Church where it is said he had a fine tenor voice. Stanley became a Surveyor to the Leominster Corporation.
He seems to have done a lot of drinking with his boon companions at the “Talbot.” and the “Baker’s Arms.” The landlady of the “Talbot” even entrusted him with her financial transactions. Possibly as a result of his extravagant drinking and treating, he ran short of money and resorted to cheating the Corporation. When his dishonesty was detected his employers demanded his resignation, and gave him the alternatives of prosecution or emigration. He chose the latter, and with some borrowed money made his way to the U.S.A. He was then 28.
The story is told that, in looking for a job there, he approached a contractor who, to get rid of him, set him an exceedingly difficult mathematical problem to work out, saying that he might consider an application from him if he had solved the problem within a few days. Within 24 hours Stanley was back with the right answer, and was engaged on the spot. He became a very competent engineer and built hundreds of bridges, became a vice President of the Bates and Rogers Construction Company, and amassed a fortune as a result. He became an American citizen.
He did not forget his debt to Leominster and regularly sent large donations to the town’s charities. In 1930 he donated the Children’s Playing Field near the Grange to the Council, and gave generous support to a number of institutions including the Cottage Hospital and the Priory Church, where a beautiful window, the most westerly in the south wall of the Priory church, was his gift in 1924. He also gave £1,000 towards the organ. As an Old Luctonian he spent £2500 buying land near the school and building a pavilion and sports ground there which bears his name.
The man who had left Leominster under a cloud returned as the first freeman of the town.
Holland never married. When he died he left nearly half a million pounds, he was generous to his many relations in the vicinity of Leominster, and he did not forget them in his Will. He was also generous to his old town providing money to the Cottage Hospital where a ward endowed by him was dedicated to his memory. His will also created a fund of £2000 to provide relief for 40 poor persons in the Borough. The “E Stanley Holland Charity” continues to make small grants to people in distress.
He left instructions that his body was to be buried in Leominster Priory church. His funeral, conducted by the Bishop of Hereford, was attended by the Mayor and councillors and thousands of the townsfolk. School children formed a guard of honour as the procession passed through the playing fields he had given them and their successors in the generations yet unborn.
