Edmond Holmes


Edmond Gore Alexander Holmes was an educationalist, writer and poet.

Biography

Holmes was born in Moycashel, County Westmeath, Ireland.
His The Creed of the Buddha is well known; he also wrote a pantheist text All is One: A Plea for a Higher Pantheism.
He was also a schools inspector, rising to become chief inspector for elementary schools in 1905. He resigned in 1911, over a confidential memorandum criticising school inspectors who had formerly been elementary school teachers. This angered the teachers' union and it led to the downfall of Robert Morant the permanent secretary to the Board of Education when it became public.
Holmes subsequent writings on education are taken as an early statement of "progressive" and "child-centred" positions, and are still cited. Later works come close to theosophy. For example, even a 1914 book review of his In Defence of What Might Be describes it as "pregnant with possibilities for the untrammeled soul of the growing child. A draft of fresh air into static pedagogy."
Words from his The Triumph of Love were set to music by the composer Charles Villiers Stanford, a friend.

Personal Life

Holmes married Florence Mary Syme in 1880 and they had three children, two daughters and a son. Daughter Verena Holmes went on to become a leading early woman engineer and only son Maurice Gerald Holmes became a British civil servant.

Publications