Educated at Gresham's School, Holt, Holtom was a graduate of the Royal College of Art. He had been a conscientious objector during World War II. In 1958 he was working for the Ministry of Education. On 21 February 1958 he designed the nuclear disarmament logo for the first Aldermaston March, organised by the Direct Action Committee against Nuclear War in Easter 1958. There are differing accounts of how the design was initiated. According to CND, Holtom had been invited by the DAC to design artwork for the Aldermaston March. He showed his preliminary sketches to a DAC meeting in February 1958 at the Peace News offices in North London. According to Christopher Driver, who wrote about CND in a 1964 book, The Disarmers, Holtom brought the design, unsolicited, to the chairperson of his local anti-nuclear group in Twickenham and alternative versions were shown at the inaugural meeting of the London CND. Driver wrote, "The first mark on paper, according to Mr Holtom, was a white circle within a black square, followed by various versions of the Christian cross within the circle". But the cross, for these people, had too many wrong associations - with the Crusaders, with military medals, with the public blessing by an American chaplain of the airplane that flew to Hiroshima - and eventually the arms of the cross were depicted as declining, forming the composite semaphore signal for the letters N and D and "D", and at the same time suggesting a gesture of human despair against the background of a globe. Eric Austen, who adapted the symbol for ceramic lapel badges, is said to have "discovered that the 'gesture of despair' motif had long been associated with 'the death of man', and the circle with 'the unborn child'". The logo was not copyrighted, and during the 1960s became known to the public as a general-purpose peace symbol. In addition to this primary genesis, Holtom additionally cited as inspiration Goya's Peasant Before the Firing Squad:
I was in despair. Deep despair. I drew myself: the representative of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya's peasant before the firing squad. I formalised the drawing into a line and put a circle round it.
The reference is to Goya's The Third of May 1808, although the peasant shown in this painting has his arms stretched upwards, not downwards.
Personal life
Holtom had six children, four with his first wife: Peter, Julia, Anna and Benjamin; and two with his second wife: Darius and Rebecca.
