Thomas Holt (1811 – 1888) wool merchant, financier and politician
Thomas Holt co-founded the Australian Mutual Providence Society, a life assurance company. The AMP was a new form of self-help, and it is not surprising that its founders and early directors were commonly evangelical Christians.
Thomas Holt co-founded the Australian Mutual Providence Society, a life assurance company. The AMP was a new form of self-help, and it is not surprising that its founders and early directors were commonly evangelical Christians. Its historian, Geoffrey Blainey, has said that its Australia-wide impact has been ‘matched only by the major religious denominations’, one of those throw away lines which recognises what has not been chronicled elsewhere, the strength of religious influence on Australian social history.
The AMP was a very evangelical Australian organisation. It sold life ‘assurance’, a popular word in evangelical circles, where the craving for it in the spiritual realm reinforced a due regard for it in this world. Holt gave the Society its early direction, serving as a director for 13 years and chairman for five, and it was he who drew up the first mortality tables on which insurance rates were calculated.
He was elected to the Legislative Council and served as colonial treasurer, consistently moving to have sessions commence with prayer. He was not a particularly successful parliamentary performer, but he was stubborn and persevering. He had a reputation for long and boring speeches, accentuated by a speech impediment, all of which made him the stenographer’s nightmare.
Complete article : http://www.australiaschristianheritageforum.org.au/Resources/Other%20Papers%20and%20Articles/CHRISTIANSINPOLITICS.pdf
Also : http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A040466b.htm
A History of the AMP 1848-1998
Geoffrey Blainey
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=lX9DomqjCAIC&pg=PA21
Refer also :
History of Thomas Holt Villages
http://www.thomasholtvillage.com.au/history.html
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