James alexander holden biography definition

James Alexander Holden (1 April – 1 June ) was the businessman who founded the South Australian company which eventually produced the Holden automobile.

History

James Alexander Holden was born in Walsall (at that time in Staffordshire), the younger son of Edward Holden, saddler and hardware merchant, and his American wife Elizabeth, née Mason.

Their elder son was Edward Thomas Holden, later Sir Edward, industrialist and, briefly, Liberal MP for Walsall. James's mother died when he was quite young, and something like enmity developed between him and his father's new wife.^[1]

Then in his father died, leaving his business to his second wife and the older son, and James was urged by George Fife Angas to forge a new life in the new colony of South Australia.

But first he sailed to America, where he was hospitably received by his mother's sister, then after a few years reached Adelaide, arriving in , just as half the male population of South Aus