Researching John Holmes

John Curtis Holmes ( Estes; August 8, 1944 – March 13, 1988), better known as John C. Holmes or Johnny Wadd (after the lead character he portrayed in a series of related films), was an American pornographic film actor. He ranks among the most prolific adult film performers, with documented credits for at least 573 films.

Holmes was best known for his exceptionally large penis, which was heavily promoted for its size, rigidity, and purported endurance, with seminal volume allegedly second only to fellow adult actor Peter North's. However, no documented measurement of Holmes' actual penis length, girth, tumescence, sexual stamina, or ejaculate volume has ever been confirmed.

Near the end of his life, Holmes attained notoriety for his reputed involvement in the Wonderland murders of July 1981 and eventually for his death from complications caused by AIDS in March 1988. He was the subject of several books, a lengthy essay in Rolling Stone and two feature-length documentaries, and was the inspiration for two Hollywood movies (Boogie Nights and Wonderland).

He was born in Ross-shire, Scotland in 1789 and came to Pictou County, Nova Scotia with his family in 1803. Prior to Canadian Confederation in 1867, he represented Pictou County in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly from 1836 to 1847 and from 1851 to 1855. Holmes then served in the Legislative Council of Nova Scotia from 1858 to 1867. Following Confederation, he was appointed by royal proclamation to the newly formed Senate of Canada on 23 October 1867. A Conservative, he represented the Senate district of Nova Scotia until his death. He was the father of Nova Scotia premier Simon Hugh Holmes.

He was born in Newtownforbes, County Longford, Ireland in 1828, the son of Alexander Holmes, and was educated in Ireland. He came to Upper Canada in 1846 and settled in Huntley Township where he became a provincial land surveyor. He married Eliza Graham. Holmes served seven years as reeve for the township and was also warden for Carleton County for five years. He served as captain in the local militia from 1866 to 1875. Elected in the Canadian federal election of 1867, he served as the Liberal-Conservative Member of Parliament representing the riding of Carleton in the province of Ontario. He was defeated in the 1872 and 1874 elections, and never again sat in parliament. He died in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1879.

After moving to Detroit at age 26, Holmes married into a merchant family. He later got involved in both the Detroit Horticultural Society and the Board of Education. In 1849, his background in horticulture and education led him to co-found the Michigan State Agricultural Society, a group dedicated to establishing a state-funded agricultural college in Michigan. Holmes spent the next six years drafting legislation and gaining support for his cause, and in 1855, the Michigan state governor signed a bill establishing the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan.

Holmes was keenly involved with the details of the Agricultural College, influencing everything from the purchase of land for the campus, layout of the buildings, and even the placement of the chairs and tables. Once the college opened, he assumed the role of treasurer and later Professor of Horticulture. By 1861, Holmes had fallen out of favor with the other College administrators, and retired to his home in Detroit. Nevertheless, he continued to support and visit the college until his death in 1887.

Born in London, Ontario, Holmes attended the University of Western Ontario and received a Master of Arts degree from the University of Toronto. From 1933 to 1938, he was a master of English at Pickering College. From 1938 to 1940, he attended the University of London. He joined the Department of External Affairs in 1943 as a temporary wartime assistant.

From 1947 to 1948, he was the Canadian Chargé d'Affaires ad interim to the Soviet Union. In 1950, he was appointed Acting Permanent Delegate to the United Nations. He became Assistant Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs in 1953 where he remained until his retirement in 1960. From 1960 to 1973, Holmes was president (later called director-general) of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs, a non-partisan, non-profit, and non-governmental organization for the discussion and analysis of international affairs.

Holmes was among hundreds of federal civil servants who were targeted in an RCMP homosexual witch hunt that intensified in 1959 and continued through the 1960s, destroying lives, careers and families.

From 1971 to 1981, he was a Professor of International Relations at York University, Glendon College. From 1967 until his death, he was a Visiting Professor of International Relations at the University of Toronto. He was also a Visiting Professor of History at the University of Leeds in 1979 and 1985.

He was the author of Life with Uncle: the Canadian-American Relationship (1981) and The Shaping of Peace: Canada and the Search for World Order 1943-1957 (2 volumes, 1979 and 1982). In 1986, he was awarded the Royal Society of Canada's J. B. Tyrrell Historical Medal in recognition of these volumes.

In 1969, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the recipient of 10 honorary doctorates.

Holmes's essays argue that the costs and quality of the co-op bread compared favourably with the private sector due to economies of scale and saving marketing costs and it provided a way to avoid adulteration of flour. On reading a paper sent to him Mill wrote:::"Your success & that of the Rochdale Association proves that there are at least two bodies of workpeople to be found who are sufficiently free from shortsighted selfishness—for that is really all that is required—to be capable of succeeding in such an enterprise, and the results, economically considered, as exhibited in your paper, are so advantageous that they can hardly fail to call forth imitators"

Other correspondents included John Ruskin and Holmes' name is also recorded as a correspondent of Marx's International Workingmen's Association, the First International.

He wrote on the history of Leeds and was a contributor to "Old Yorkshire".

He was also a serious antiquarian and collected antiquities on an expedition to the Near East. This trip followed the death in 1881 of his first wife. His collection was later acquired by the Leeds City Museum and is now in Abbey House. He also sponsored archeological digs by his friend T.B. Sandwith, Vice Consul in Cyprus.

There were no surviving children from his first wife Sarah Ann (née Dale, d. 1881) who he had married in 1839, but he subsequently married Ada Higgins with whom he had two sons: Samuel (b. 1883) and Alfred (b. 1887).

Holmes born in 1760 to Isaac Holmes and Rebecca Bee. During the Revolutionary War, he was the aide-de-camp to General John Barnwell. He married Elizabeth Edwards in 1783 and was admitted to practice law the same year. He owned Washington Plantation on the Cooper River in St. John's Parish (Berkeley County).

Holmes was elected intendant in September 1794. He resigned in September 1795 and was followed in office by his brother-in-law, John Edwards. He also held state office, representing the Charleston area in the General Assembly of South Carolina from 1791 to 1797. He served in the South Carolina Senate from 1799 to 1801.

He died on September 5, 1827, and is buried at the Circular Congregational churchyard in Charleston.