Thomas Holloway (September 22 1800 - December 26 1883) was a patent medicine vendor and philanthropist from the United Kingdom.
He was born of humble parents in Devonport, on 22nd September 1800. Until the age of 28, he lived in Penzance, where he assisted his mother and brother in the family bakers shop which his father, once a warrant officer in a militia regiment, had left them at his death. He then moved to London, 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.
Thomas Holloway is best remembered for the instutions which he built in the UK. Firstly the Holloway Sanitorium in Virginia Water, Surrey. And secondly Royal Holloway College, a college of the University of London located a short distance away from the Santorium 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 paid over £80,000 pounds to acquire 77 Victorian 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), Thomas Holloway died of congestion of the lungs at Sunninghill on 26th December 1883.
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