Author: Hodgson, Bernard
Biography:
HODGSON, Bernard (1743-1805: ODNB)
The third son of Eleanor and Mark Hodgson, he was baptised at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London, on 5 Nov. 1743. He was educated at Westminster School, where he became a King’s Scholar and Captain of the school. On the strength of those achievements he was elected to a studentship at Christ Church, Oxford (matric. 1765, BA 1768, MA 1771, DCL 1776). His College gave him the living of Tolpuddle, Dorset, where he remained the vicar for the rest of his life, in 1775, but in the same year he became the Principal of Hertford College, Oxford—a position that he also held for life. On 1 May 1783 he married Harriet Sainsbury (d 1797) at Chippenham, Wiltshire; they had one son, Charles, who followed his father to Christ Church and likewise entered the Church. He died in Oxford on 21 May 1805 (not 28 as in ODNB) after “a painful illness” and was buried, like his wife before him, at the church of St. Peter in the East, Oxford. His major publications were the translations from Hebrew listed here, and a similar “new translation” of Ecclesiastes (1790). The attribution to him of the anonymous anti-Catholic poem The Monastery seems secure. (ODNB 21 Sept. 2022; findmypast.com 23 Sept. 2022; Alumni Oxonienses; SJC 28 May 2022)