William Holliday

Note : dates are given using the New Style calendar.

William Holliday (also spelled Hollidaie and Halliday) (c. 1565 – February 14, 1624) was a wealthy London businessman and chairman of the East India Company.

He was apparently born in Gloucestershire. It is not clear who his parents were: Burke's Commoners makes him out to be the son of Lawrence and Anne Holliday of Gloucester, but the children listed in Lawrence's will (1587) and the brother and sister named in William's will (1623) do not have the same names, so they appear to be different families. Nevertheless, according to William's will, he was a cousin of Sir Leonard Holliday, who was later Lord Mayor of London.

William was later sent to London, probably in the 1580s, where he served an apprenticeship in the Worshipful Company of Mercers, which controlled the city's textile industry. In 1594 he took part in the Duke of Cumberland's expedition to the Azores which involved the sinking of the great Portuguese carrack the Cinco Chagas. William evidently had a successful career as a mercer. He was also involved in the East India Company, of which his cousin Sir Leonard had been a founder, and was elected as a 'committee', i.e. director, in 1616. In 1617 he served as Master of the Mercers Company and was elected a sheriff for the year . In February 1618, he was elected an alderman of the City. William's stature and success were reflected in the arranged marriages of his two daughters. In April 1619, after "long and ernest sollicitation" by the Marquess (later Duke) of Buckingham, who was acting on instructions from King James, he married off Anne to Sir Henry Mildmay. In 1621, William was elected governor of the East India Company, a position he held for the remaining three years of his life.

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