HOLDEN, Rev Albert Thomas CBE (1866-1935)
Rev Albert Thomas Holden CBE, minister of the Methodist Church died on 20 August (1935), following an illness extending over three months. He was the son of a Wallace produce merchant, Thomas Holden and Mary nee Hague and was educated at Geelong College from 1881 to 1882 and matriculating in 1882. After leaving the College he entered Ormond College in 1885, studying law and taking a BA degree at the University of Melbourne in 1888. He was ordained while still a student in 1887.
In 1887 Holden served as a probationer at Camberwell in 1888, working at Burwood with railway construction workers and then with miners while at the Omeo Home Mission in 1890-91. After a tour of Europe with E S Bickford in 1892 he married Martha Mesley. He was then appointed to Port Cygnet, Tasmania (1893-95; Dunkeld and Penshurst (1896-98); Hawthorn (1899-1901) and Elsternwick (1902-1903).
From 1898 Holden was an army chaplain and in 1900 accompanied the Victorian Fourth Contingent (Imperial Bushmen) to the Anglo-Boer War.
During World War I, he was commissioned in July 1916, as Chaplain-General (Methodist) attached to AIF headquarters and embarked from Melbourne on HMAT Orsova on 1 August 1916. It was his duty to visit AIF camps, depots, hospitals and units in England, France and Egypt, and report to Government on the Chaplaincy service Although he returned to Australia in March, 1917 he promptly re-enlisted in October, 1917 embarking for Europe on HMAT Port Sydney on 5 November, 1917 and serving as Senior-Chaplain (Methodist). He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire 3 June 1919 and demobilized in March 1920.
His son, Norman Gladstone Holden, who was educated at Wesley College, Melbourne, acted as his batman on his inspection tour of England, France and Egypt in 1916. On his return to Australia Norman Holden enlisted in the AIF and embarked with the Artillery Reinforcements in November 1917 on HMAT A15 Port Sydney for England and France on the same troopship as his father. He was killed in action, aged 20, near Roisel, France, on 29 September 1918 while serving with 11th Field Artillery Brigade, and buried in Roisel Communal Cemetery Extension, France. Senior Chaplain Albert Holden wrote to the parents of a young Australian soldier who had been killed in the last days of the fighting for Australia, on the second last day of September 1918. On 11 November 1918, he visited the local French cemetery attached to the parish church at Roisel to which a few war graves had been added. After describing the joy of those first Armistice celebrations, Holden continued his letter:
‘And I stand here before the grave of your son, whom I knew to be a gallant soldier and a good lad, feeling the sadness and grief that you must feel, even as these shouts and sounds of victory swirl all around me. And how do I know of your feelings of grief and sorrow. Because my boy, nineteen years of age, lies in the grave next to your lad, great friends in war together, lying side by side now in a war cemetery, their duty done.’
He played a prominent part in the expansion of the Home Missions activities of the Methodist Church, being elected in 1932 as President-General of Australia, after acting as general superintendent of this branch of church work from 1904 to 1932. From 1926 he held the post of Director of Australian Inland Mission for his church. In Freemasonry, he occupied the position of Grand Chaplain in 1906-7, Deputy Grand Master 1907-11, and Grand Master 1912-14; Past Grand Master of the Mark Degree was conferred on him in 1935, and Past Grand Prelate of the Great Priory of England and Wales. In 1932, he attended the historic United Conference in England which instigated Methodist union, speaking as Australian representative at the Albert Hall, afterward receiving the Freedom of the City of London. He earned the Victorian Humane Certificate for life saving in 1911 when he saved someone from drowning at Sorrento. In 1934, the Toronto University conferred on him the degree of DD.
Pegasus in September 1935 published the following Obituary:
'Albert Thomas Holden (1881) died on 20th August, following an illness extending over three months. After leaving the College he entered Ormond College, taking the B.A. degree, from where he was ordained while still a student in 1887.
He played a prominent part in the expansion of the Home Missions activities of the Methodist Church, being elected in 1932 as President-General of Australia, after acting as general superintendent of this branch of church work from 1904 to 1932. From 1926 he held the post of Director of Australian Inland Mission for his church.
In Freemasonry he occupied the position of Grand Chaplain in 1906-7, Deputy Grand Master 1907-11, and Grand Master 1912-14; Past Grand Master of the Mark Degree was conferred on him in 1935, and Past Grand Prelate of the Great Priory of England and Wales.
He accompanied the Victorian contingent to the South African War as Chaplain, and during the Great War was Senior Chaplain attached to A.I.F. headquarters. He held the Victorian Humane Certificate for life saving.
In 1932 he attended the historic United Conference in England, speaking as Australian representative at the Albert Hall, afterward
receiving the Freedom of the City of London. His honours included the C.B.E. and V.D., and this year the Toronto University conferred on him the degree of D.D. Our sympathy goes out to his two daughters and son.'
Sources: Pegasus September 1935 pp 63-4; James Affleck Geelong Collegians’ at the Great War (citing: The AWM Collection includes a photograph of the funeral of Sir George Reid in London on 14th September 1918. The gathering includes Lord Blyth, T W Heney (Sydney Morning Herald), Sir Charles Gregory Wade, the Rt Hon William Morris Hughes, Sir Joseph Cook, Dr Archibald Fleming, Chaplain Colonel A T Holden, and Lt Douglas Reid.; The University of Melbourne: Record of Active Service of Teachers, Graduates, Undergraduates, Officers and Servants (1926); Australian War Memorial; The Pegasus; National Archives; McKernan, Michael: The Strength of a Nation); Ian F McLaren, Australian Dictionary of Biography Vol 9 MUP, 1983 pp 327-328.