Evelyn Holden

Evelyn Holden (1877 – c.1960) was a book illustrator and designer as well as an artist.

Biography Evelyn Holden was one of the younger children of Emma Wearing Holden, an ex-governess and writer and her husband the industrialist Arthur Holden. There were another four other sisters including Effie Margaret Holden, Violet Mary Holden and Edith Holden and two brothers. The family originally lived in a large house in Acocks Green, outside Birmingham though in 1880 they moved further into the countryside to Darley Green, in Packwood. Art, poetry, nature and books were a constant in the house. The daughters were educated at home while the sons were sent away to school.

In 1890 Holden and her sister Violet attended the Birmingham School of Art where Edith was already enrolled. The family moved to Gowan Bank, a house much closer to the train line making the daily commute into the city a simpler process. The house was a regular destination for socialists and spiritualists to visit the Holden parents whenever they visited to speak in Birmingham. The Holden family regularly held seances and put on theatrical productions in the chapel in the garden.

Holden married Frank Matthews in 1904. He worked with slum children who had been crippled and Holden joined him in his work. Holden was over 90 at her death.