Thomas Holderness

Sir Thomas William Holderness, 1st Baronet, GCB, KCSI (11 June 1849 – 16 September 1924) was the first former member of the Indian Civil Service to be appointed to the post of Permanent Under-Secretary of State for India (although Sir George Russell Clerk had previously been a member of the East India Company Civil Service).

Holderness came from a wealthy Hull family, but was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, where his parents, John William Holderness and his wife Mary Ann (née Macleod), were then settled. The family returned to England shortly after his birth. Although the premature death of his father in 1865 left the family in straitened circumstances, he managed to pay for his education at Cheltenham College by winning several scholarships and prizes, and in 1879 went up to University College, Oxford, again with a scholarship. He passed the entrance exam for the Indian Civil Service in 1870, one of only about forty who passed every year, with high enough marks to be allowed to choose which province he served in. He received a second in classical mods in 1871 and a second in law and modern history in 1872, leaving for India after his graduation.

Holderness chose to enter civil service in the North-Western Provinces and served from 1873 to 1876 as a district officer in the small towns of Bijnor, Fatehpur, and Muzaffarnagar. He also wrote articles for the press, and his writings and administrative ability brought him to the notice of Lieutenant-Governor Sir John Strachey, who called him to the provincial capital, Allahabad, in 1876 to take up a post in the provincial government offices.

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