Harold Leonard Holder
Harold Leonard Holder (c1892-1941)
1941 Obituary [1]
HAROLD LEONARD HOLDER received his technical education at Croydon Polytechnic and King's College, London, and served his apprenticeship from 1906 to 1912 with the London Electric Company in Croydon. His first appointment was that of toolmaker improver for Messrs. C. A. Vandervell and Company, electrical engineers, of Acton, and after further experience in a similar capacity with Messrs. Dennis, Brothers, Ltd., motor manufacturers of Guildford, and with Messrs. Creed and Company in Croydon, he joined Messrs. Gillett and Johnston, of Croydon, for whom he took charge of the design, layout and setting up of machines used in the manufacture of shell and bomb fuses.
Two years later, in 1917, he was appointed machine shop foreman and tool designer to the London Electric Company, manufacturers of searchlight projectors and gun control gear. He joined the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1922 as assistant engineer in charge of the machine and fitting shops, in Abadan, Persia, and subsequently held appointments as engineer in charge of the refinery general workshops, in the marine engineering depot and of the distillation and refining workshops. On the amalgamation of these departments in 1929, he was promoted to be assistant superintendent, and subsequently became superintendent, a position which he held until his retirement in 1939.
Mr. Holder, who was elected an Associate Member of the Institution in 1939, was senior technical assistant in the Directorate of Tank Production of the Ministry of Supply, and senior progress officer for tanks in the, Midland area, at the time of his death, which occurred in his forty-ninth year on 13th March 1941. He had previously been employed as an examiner by the Aeronautical Inspection Directorate of the Air Ministry.