Frederick Jesse Huntley Holland (also known as Frederick Huntley Holland), businessman, philanthropist and plant collector, was the son of Frederick Holland and Jessie Helen Huntley. He was educated at St Andrews College, Grahamstown, but left school when his parents died. At the age of 14 he was employed by the firm Dunnell Ebden and Co. of Port Elizabeth, in which his uncle, Owen R. Dunnell, was a partner. He became a partner himself in 1908. That same year he was empowered to act as vice-consul of Belgium at Port Elizabeth, an appointment that was confirmed in 1919, but from which he resigned in 1921.
Holland was an active member of commercial and agricultural organizations in Port Elizabeth and funded the Fred Holland scholarship at St Andrews College. By 1931 he was a town councillor of Port Elizabeth and in that year the residential township Holland Park was named after him. By 1941 he had established the firm Holland & Whyle. He became known for his philanthropic work in the township of New Brighton, especially in establishing educational opportunities and health facilities. In 1901 he married Mildred Armstrong Pettit, with whom he had a son. After her death he married Ellen May Bowditch.
At his country estate at Despatch, near Port Elizabeth, Holland created an outstanding garden with mainly indigenous plants that he collected himself. The new species he found included Aloe polyphylla. He sent plant specimens to the herbarium of the Albany Museum, Grahamstown, the Bolus Herbarium and Compton Herbarium in Cape Town, and the National Herbarium in Pretoria. The species Homoglossum hollandii and Agapanthus hollandii were named after him, the former by H.M.L. Bolus*.
Holland became a member of the South African Biological Society in 1919 or 1920.
