Ian Holbourn

Holbourn was educated at the Slade School of Art and Merton College, Oxford. As a young man he became fond of the remote Scottish island of Foula, which he succeeded in purchasing around 1900, thus becoming its laird.{{cite book|title=The Isle of Foula|id={{ASIN|1841581615|country=uk}} }}{{cite news|title=Must Foula Become Deserted?|url=http://find.galegroup.com/ttda/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=TTDA&userGroupName=oxford&tabID=T003&docPage=article&searchType=BasicSearchForm&docId=CS152397605&type=multipage&contentSet=LTO&version=1.0|access-date=7 May 2015|work=The Times|issue=56109|date=5 September 1964|archive-date=27 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211027200730/https://idp.shibboleth.ox.ac.uk/idp/profile/SAML2/POST/SSO?execution=e1s1|url-status=live}}

He was a co-founder of Ruskin College, and served on the college's correspondence and examining staff for many years. He was also appointed professor of the University of California{{'s}} art and architecture extension programme, and was instrumental in the expansion of the art department of Carleton College in Minnesota, where he served part-time as a professor of art and archaeology.

Holbourn was a second-class passenger on the {{RMS|Lusitania}} on her last voyage in May 1915. During the voyage, Holbourn befriended 12-year-old Avis Dolphin, who was being escorted to school and family in England by two nurses, Hilda Ellis and Sarah Smith.{{cite book|last1=Preston|first1=Diana|title=Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy|date=May 2002|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing USA|isbn=9780802713759}}{{rp|129}}

With his insights into the largely hushed-up events surrounding the wreck of the RMS Oceanic on 8 September 1914 off Foula, Professor Holbourn was aware of the dangers presented to ocean liners during the First World War, and as a passenger on Lusitania was prepared to face the worst. Holbourn attempted to insist that Captain William Thomas Turner should take the precautions of ordering lifeboat drills and instructing passengers on how to wear lifejackets. His efforts to stimulate safety awareness during a time of war were unwelcome, and he was asked to keep quiet.{{rp|130}} When the ship was torpedoed by an Imperial German Navy U-boat during the First World War on 7 May 1915, Holbourn guided Avis Dolphin and her nurses to his cabin where he fitted them with life belts, even offering up his own;{{rp|204}} he then steered them through the tilting passageways to the decks above and into a lifeboat. This lifeboat capsized while being lowered into the water. Dolphin was saved, though her nurses were not.

Holbourn himself dived into the ocean to find himself surrounded by a mass of bodies and wreckage. His hope of reaching the nearest boat was interrupted when he stopped to help a man who was floating helplessly nearby. By the time Holbourn found his way to a boat, the man he had pulled along with him was dead.{{rp|250}}

Holbourn was picked up by the fishing boat Wanderer of Peel and later transferred to the Stormcock. He was one of over 750 rescued from the Lusitania to arrive at Queenstown in Ireland that night.{{citation needed|date=May 2015}}

Holbourn continued to write and remained lifelong friends with Avis Dolphin. One of his books, The Child of the Moat (1916), was written for Dolphin because she had complained that books for girls were uninteresting.{{citation needed|date=May 2015}}

On most of his written works, Holbourn is identified as Ian Bernard Stoughton Holbourn. His published works include:

• Jacopo Robusti, Called Tintoretto. (1903). London: G. Bell.
• Children of Fancy (Poems). (1915). New York: G. Arnold Shaw.
• The Need for Art in Life. (1915). Haldeman-Julius Company.
• The Child of the Moat, A Story for Girls, 1557 A.D. (1916).
• The Isle of Foula. (Edited by Mrs Marion Constance Archer-Shepherd Stoughton Holbourn). (1938). Johnson and Greig.
• An Introduction to the Architectures of European Religions (1909).{{cite book|author=Holbourn, Ian|date=1909|title=An Introduction to the Architectures of European Religions|url=https://archive.org/details/introductiontoar00stourich|location=Edinburgh |publisher=T. [and] T. Clark}}

He was married to Marion Constance Archer-Shepherd, and together they had three sons.{{citation needed|date=May 2015}}

{{more footnotes|date=April 2012}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite book|author=Ballard, Dr. Robert D. with Dunmore, Spencer |title=Exploring the Lusitania|publisher= Warner Books, Inc.|date= 1995}}
• {{cite book|author1=Hickey, Des |author2=Smith, Gus |title=Seven Days to Disaster|url=https://archive.org/details/sevendaystodisas00hick|url-access=registration|publisher= G.P. Putnam's Sons|date= 1981|isbn=9780399126994 }}
• {{cite book|author1=Hoehling, A.A. |author2=Hoehling, Mary Hoehling |title=The Last Voyage of the Lusitania|publisher= Madison Books|date= 1956}}
• {{cite book|author=Holbourn, Ian B. Stoughton|title=The Isle of Foula}}
• {{cite book|title=Memoir|author=Houlbourn, Marion C. |publisher= Johnson & Greig|date= 1938|edition= Reprinted, Birlinn Books, 2001}}
• {{cite web|url=http://www.rmslusitania.info/people/second-cabin/ian-holbourn/ |title=Professor John 'Ian' Bernard Stoughton Holbourn, biography |website= The Lusitania Resource website|date=12 December 2010 }}

• [https://archivedb.carleton.edu/?p=collections/findingaid&id=2724&q= Finding Aid: Ian S. Holbourn Lectures, circa 1920-circa 1930]{{Dead link|date=May 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, Carleton College Archives
• {{Librivox author |id=12389}}

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Category:Alumni of Merton College, Oxford

Category:Academics of the University of Oxford

Category:British writers

Category:Carleton College faculty

Category:1872 births

Category:1935 deaths

Category:RMS Lusitania survivors

Category:Lairds of Foula