[3] In 1884, Thomas won a scholarship to study at the Royal College of Science, graduating with a first class degree in Geology.

Holland produced the first scientific description of what he named as charnockite from Job Charnock's tombstone located in St John's Church compound in Calcutta which had been brought from somewhere in Madras.

[4][5] Holland continued work on the gneisses of southern India that had earlier been classified by William King and Robert Bruce Foote.

Holland reclassified the hypersthene granites as acidic (the charnockites, with the type being from St Thomas Mount), the intermediate, basic, and ultrabasic.

The Albert Medal of the Royal Society of Arts for 1939 was awarded to Sir Thomas H. Holland, "for his services to the mineral industries".