Mr Joseph Arthur Holliday was born at 48 India Street in Liverpool, England on 5 December 1872 and baptised in St Peter’s Church on 26 January the following year. He was one of four children born to Joseph Holliday, a butcher, and the former Arabella Clements.

Holliday was apprenticed as a baker after completing schooling; by 1911 he was described as a master baker and still living with his parents, then at 5 Laurel Road in Tranmere, Cheshire. In April 1912 he was 4th baker aboard Carpathia, his first working sea voyage, when that ship rescued the survivors of the Titanic disaster.

A freemason, Holliday continued working at sea during WWI but later went ashore to continue working as a baker, retiring sometime prior to 1939. In 1916 he married Betsy Stansfield (1867-1939). 

Joseph Holliday remained a resident of Birkenhead for the rest of his life; predeceased by his wife in June 1939, he died on 16 April 1944 and was buried with his wife in Landican Cemetery in the Wirral.