Mr Holloway started in life as a medical practitioner at Kingston in Surrey where he was superintendent of the medical department of the Kingston Dispensary. He also occasionally officiated as minister of a dissenting chapel and subsequently he was well known as a popular dissenting preacher at Mitcham, Romford, Woodford, Kingsland and other places. Whilst at Kingsland he applied to the then Bishop of London to be ordained as a clergyman but Bishop Blomfield declined to comply.
He shortly afterwards visited Rouen where he took charge of a congregation formed on the principles of the English Established Church where he resided five years. He next removed to Havre and during his residence there he attracted the notice of the Bishop of Lichfield who subsequently ordained him.
Afterwards he as appointed Lecturer of Ashbourne and to the incumbency of Rocester, Staffordshire where he became acquainted with the Rev. A. J. Ram, the Vicar of West Ham, who appointed him to the incumbency of St John's Stratford on the resignation of the Rev. Charles Nicholls in the year 1851.
The church of St. Paul, Stratford, originated about 1850 when a City Missionary opened a Sunday school at Stratford New Town, for which, in 1853, a building was erected in Queen Street by Samuel Gurney. Although New Town was in St. John's parish, Rev. Holloway, was half-hearted in his support of the mission, and in 1856 Rev. Ram, vicar of All Saints and patron of St. John's, obtained a site for a new church. Holloway resented this interference and a quarrel ensued, as the result of which Ram apparently took over the mission.
He died in office on December 29th 1864.
His obituary in the Gentleman's Magazine gives age as 74, making his year of birth 1790.
Sources:
- 1851 Census
- Gentleman's Magazine, Volume 216, P.261, 1864 Google Books
- 'West Ham: Churches', in A History of the County of Essex: Volume 6, ed. W R Powell (London, 1973), pp. 114-123. British History Online.