Hodgson, Hodgson and Hodgson: clerical dynasties

In his book on the history of Whitgift School Freddie Percy refers to several Hodgsons including Christopher, Francis, James and John George. All were clergymen except Christopher. It is known that James was the father of Francis but Freddie Percy could find no evidence that Christopher, John George or James were related. The purpose of this article is to establish relationships. It also includes the information that is in Freddie Percy's book.

The family of Francis Hodgson is well-documented as there exists a two-volume memoir written by his son, James T. Hodgson, in 1878, giving details of the family history. Francis's grandfather was a James Hodgson, born in 1711 in the Lake District, who was rector of Humber, a parish close to Leominster in Herefordshire, from 1756 to 1777. He had married into an ancient and respectable Herefordshire family, the Vaughans, his bride being Elizabeth, the daughter of the Rev. Henry Vaughan.

James Hodgson, the son of James and Elizabeth, was Schoolmaster of Whitgift from 1774 to 1801. In 1775, James married Jane Coke, daughter of a leading Herefordshire county family, and their second son, Francis, was born in Croydon in 1781. Francis was probably the most famous of the Whitgift Hodgsons as he was Provost of Eton from 1840 until his death in 1852 and a friend of Lord Byron. He had been secretary to Archbishop Manners-Sutton who, in 1809, sent him to inspect the school's accounts, as the result of which there was a court of inquiry, of which Christopher was a member, into the maladministration of the school's funds.

John George Hodgson, born in 1812, was instituted as vicar of Croydon in 1846 and was involved with the reorganisation of Whitgift School in the 1850s. Indeed it was John George's scheme of reorganisation which was approved by the Court of Chancery in 1856, and he became one of its twelve governors, all appointed by the then Archbishop. He stayed to see the rebuilding of St John's after the disastrous fire of 1867, leaving for Saltwood in Kent in 1879 where he became rector. He died in 1888 and at least three of his sons, too, became clergymen. The vicar was, according to Freddie Percy, a 'man of dominating personality and of great organising skill', regarding the school as his 'own particular property'.

Christopher Hodgson is occasionally mentioned in local books and newspapers as, for example, living in Blunt House in the 1830s and 40s and being steward of the Archbishop's manor of Croydon. In 1838 the Surrey Standard mentioned him as one of the tenants of the mansion on the 150 acre estate owned by Sir Charles Blount and ten years later it regretted that the new Archbishop had chosen a different secretary. Yet he was much more influential than these brief references might suggest. He was indeed secretary to successive Archbishops of Canterbury and steward of the manor of Croydon, the Archbishops' peculiar, but he was also, from 1822 to 1871, secretary and treasurer of the Queen Anne's Bounty, by which the Church of England received funding in compensation for the deprivations of previous rulers. In fact, says the historian Geoffrey Best, he was the Bounty and was extremely efficient and perfect master of his facts. Besides this he was secretary to the dean and chapter of St Paul's Cathedral from 1806/7. He also acted as secretary to the bishop of London and the Archbishop of York. He was not to retire until his late eighties.

Christopher was born in Holborn in 1784 and died, aged ninety, at Isleworth in 1874 and is buried in Norwood cemetery. He was twice a widower, his first wife Caroline bearing him seven children, She was of Huguenot descent, a Dalbiac, and she was technically a minor when they were married in 1811. His second wife, Elizabeth, died in 1861, aged 75, and is also buried at Norwood. Three of his sons became clergymen, one, John Fisher, serving as curate in Croydon from 1835 to 1840.

That Christopher and John George were related is indicated in a newspaper report about John George needing a new vicarage as he was used to more spacious accommodation at St Peter's in the Isle of Thanet in Kent where he had served as curate under his father, John Hodgson, who was vicar there from 1835 to 1857. Attending the vestry meeting at Croydon, Christopher said John George was a 'relative' but the exact relationship is unstated. The relationship is made clear in the introduction to a volume of life tables drawn from the lives of clergy in England and Wales that this John Hodgson compiled as secretary of the Clergy Mutual Assurance Company from its foundation in 1829 until his death in 1870. Christopher was his brother and therefore John George was Christopher's nephew.

The father of John Hodgson was also a John Hodgson, one of ten or more children of Ralph and Catherine Hodgson living at Bishop Auckland in Durham (Ralph died there in 1780, aged 78). John Hodgson the father was an apparitor to the bishop of Durham, ensuring the orders of the ecclesiastical courts were carried out, but then became the secretary to three bishops of Lincoln over a period of fifty years. He died in 1822 aged 82, was buried in Buckden parish church, and his will was proved before his sons Christopher and John. Their mother was the Hon. Sarah, daughter of George Harris, the 1st Baron Harris, himself the son of a clergyman of Brasted in Kent.

Earlier than the eighteenth century it is not necessary to go. The two different Hodgson lines illustrate how clerical families secured their future. Their social status rose by marriage to landed families whose own sons included clergymen, soldiers and lawyers. The Hodgsons were educated at public schools such as Charterhouse and Westminster and at Oxford and Cambridge, particularly at Trinity, Christ Church and Balliol at Oxford. Even if offices were not inherited, there was the presumption that there was the opportunity of favourable patronage. Christopher's other nephew succeeded him as secretary of the Queen Anne's Bounty and the successor but one as secretary of the Clergy Mutual Assurance Company seems to have been John's grandson, Matthew, the son of John George. Such men were able to bring up large families, educating their sons so that they could rise to the top of their profession, an education their daughters lacked but without whom such dynasties could not be created. Croydon provided good patronage for the Hodgsons as Lord Hawkesbury lived at Addiscombe while James was Schoolmaster and James taught his son, the future Prime Minister, the 2nd Earl of Liverpool, and the Archbishops of Canterbury advanced the careers of the other line of the Hodgsons as Croydon was an archiepiscopal manor.

Brian Lancaster

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