John Holt (composer)

John Holt was a leading change ringer and noted composer of peals on English full circle bells in the 18th century, and is described as a composer "..holding a position which is unique in the history of change ringing".

One John Holt who was baptized at Christ Church Greyfriars on 31 March 1726 is suggested to have been him, although someone of the same name was also baptized in October of the same year at St Botolph-without-Aldgate, East Smithfield. He died in 1753, at the age of twenty-seven.

Holt was not born into wealth, being described years later in the 1788 Clavis Campanalogia (a bellringing textbook) as "a poor unlettered youth", which could well account for his untimely death. By trade he was a shoemaker, but very little else is known about his personal life.

Although an underprivileged and illiterate working class member of society, John Holt became a very highly placed individual in the art of method ringing. Despite the fact that his ringing career spanned less than a decade, his contributions had incalculable impacts and he remains one of the most famous names in the history of the art.

In some respects, however, his ringing career remains almost as mysterious as his personal life. It is not known at which tower Holt learnt to ring, or who taught him. Most information about him is drawn solely from the records of the London ringing societies with which he was affiliated. Holt became a member of the Union Scholars bell ringing society in 1745. He took on a prominent role as conductor, conducting most of the society's peals before it became defunct. In 1752 he left the Union Scholars and became a member of the Ancient Society of College Youths, to this day a thriving company.

It was possibly Holt's role as a conductor that got him interested in composing peals. As with his general ringing career, it is not known how he learnt the aspects of the art. Some of his compositions were recorded in the peal book of the Union Scholars. His chosen composition style in methods such as Grandsire Caters and Plain Bob Major is very similar to the compositions in these methods produced by his peers. In 1753 a broadsheet of four of Holt's Triples compositions was advertised for a subscription of five shillings and three pence. The document did not become available until the following year, after the composer's death, the delay possibly being a result of the objections made by Benjamin Annable, a leading London ringer.

...
Wikipedia