University of Virginia Library

WILLIAM HOLDING ECHOLS,
JR.

Echols Residence House receives its name
from William Holding Echols, Jr., who, in
his forty-seven years at the University of
Virginia as student and member of the
Faculty, made that name, familiarly shortened
to "Reddy" Echols, symbolize a strenuously
individual but eminently constructive
influence in university life. This influence
has most recently been memorialized
at the University in the name of the
Echols Scholarship program.

Born in San Antonio, Texas, 2 December
1859, Echols was the son of William Holding
and Mary Beirne Patton Echols. He
studied in private schools until he matriculated
at the University of Virginia in
1878, at the age of nineteen. In four years
he attained to both B.S. and C.E. degrees.
After vigorous field experience as construction
engineer for four different railways
in the deep South, his teaching career
began in 1887 in Missouri when he became

Professor of Applied Mathematics and, the
following year, Director of the Missouri
School of Mines. From there he returned
in 1891 to the University of Virginia as
Adjunct Professor of Mathematics. He was
also saddled with the duties of Superintendent
of Buildings and Grounds, and it
was in the alert performance of this added
responsibility that he became the outstanding
hero at the burning of the Rotunda in
October 1895.

The Rotunda fire was a sharp dividing
point in the history of the University of
Virginia. There followed energetic developments
in building activity and in administrative
procedure. In those developments
Professor Echols took a leading part. He
was both a creating and a conserving force,
and his influence penetrated to all parts of
the University. He supported the insistence
on erecting new buildings in harmony with
the original Jeffersonian architectural plan.
He was scornful of what he deemed to be
frills, such as the wearing of academic costume.
He was a strong advocate of pure

amateurism in college sports. It was he who
for many years illuminated for entering
students the ideals of the Honor System—
insisting that "Eternal vigilance is absolutely
necessary for its preservation." In the
first World War he, with President Alderman,
headed the University Council on
Military Service. All this was in addition to
his chosen career as a teacher. In the year
after the Fire he had been promoted to a
full professorship and to the headship of
the School of Mathematics, and his forceful
teaching was supplemented by various
published papers and by the several editions
of his textbook on Differential and
Applied Calculus.

Through all these years of residence in
the university community, his tall, athletic
figure, striding to and from his home in
Pavilion VIII (now the President's office),
was a familiar and respected sight. That
was a lively home. He had married twice:
to Mary Elizabeth Blakey, on 9 September
1885, who died in 1894, and to Elizabeth
Mitchell Harrison, on 15 June 1897. There

were five children of each marriage, three
daughters and seven sons. Of the sons, four
became students at the University of Virginia.
At the time of his death, three of
the children were deceased, but the others
were carrying on the name with distinction
in various fields. Death came to him suddenly,
on 29 September 1934, from a heart
attack. He had already begun his schedule
of teaching for another new session. At
his funeral the pall bearers were students.
members of the Chi Phi Fraternity and of
the Eli Banana Society. He lies buried in
the University Cemetery, just beyond the
Echols Residence House.