Killed in action aged 33
No known grave

Joseph was born in Cheetham, Manchester, the second eldest of the five children of Edward Holt and his wife Elizabeth Brooks.

Edward had inherited a brewing company from his father, Joseph, which continues in the ownership of his descendants in the twenty-first century. He was active in local government and was Lord Mayor of Manchester in 1907-09. He was given a baronetcy in 1916. The Holt family were generous benefactors improving buildings, libraries, water and sewage works and helping to raise funds to purchase radium for the Manchester and District Radium Institute, which was named the Holt Radium Institute in Edward’s honour. He commissioned the Arts and Crafts architect, M.H. Baillie Scott to build Blackwell House at Bowness-on-Windermere.

Joseph was educated at Rugby and came up to Christ Church in 1900. After Oxford, he returned to Prestwich to work in the family brewing company. He was in the territorials of the Manchester Regiment and was mobilised at the outbreak of war with the rank of captain in the 6th Manchester Regiment, serving in Egypt and Turkey. He was killed at Gallipoli.

His name is on Panel 158 to 170 on the Helles Memorial.

He is commemorated in Trinity Church, Winster Cumbria by a bronze memorial plaque surmounted with a circular wreath and the Sphinx in white and red enamel.
'To the memory of Joseph Holt elder son of Sir Edward Holt Bart & Elizabeth his wife, Blackwell, Windermere. Captain 6th Batt Manchester Reg who was killed in action in the Gallipoli Peninsula on the fourteenth of June 1915 Aged 33 years.'

His name, along with three others, is inscribed on the sandstone memorial cross in the churchyard.

The Holts financed the choir stalls and the elaborate rood screen in St Mary’s Church, Prestwich, as a memorial to Joseph.