Hamnet Holditch

Rev. Hamnet Holditch, also spelled Hamnett Holditch (1800 – 12 December 1867), was an English mathematician who was President of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. In 1858, he introduced the result in geometry now known as Holditch's theorem.

Hamnet Holditch was born in 1800 in King's Lynn, the son of George Holditch, pilot and harbour-master. Educated at King's Lynn Grammar School under Rev. Martin Coulcher, he matriculated at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge in 1818, and graduated B.A. in 1822 (Senior Wrangler and 1st Smith's Prize), M.A. in 1825.

At Gonville and Caius College, Holditch was a junior fellow from 1821 and a senior fellow from 1823, and held the college posts of lecturer in Hebrew and Greek, registrar, steward, salarist (1823–28), bursar (1828–31), and President (1835–67).

He died at Gonville and Caius College on 12 December 1867, aged 67, and was buried at North Wootton. John Venn, an undergraduate at Caius in the 1850s then a Caius Fellow from 1857, noted that Holditch, despite his succession of college offices, "beyond a few private pupils, never took part in educational work":