About 1757 he settled at Walton-on-the-Hill, near Liverpool, where for many years he acted as parish clerk, highway surveyor, and master of the free grammar school, besides at one time keeping a ladies' school.
There is an interesting etched portrait of Holt by his pupil, W. Rogers, of which there are small reproductions in the Gentleman’s Magazine and the Transactions of the Historic Society.
A paper "On the Curle in Potatoes" procured him the medal of the Society of Arts.
He compiled a few books for the use of schools, wrote one or two novels, and collected materials for a history of Liverpool, which he bequeathed to Matthew Gregson.
[1] Holt published in 1786–8 A few years later, for the Board of Agriculture, he made the agricultural survey of Lancashire, and published in 1794 his results in a This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Sutton, Charles William (1891).