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Author: Hodgson, John

Biography:

HODGSON, John (1779-1845: ODNB)

Hodgson was a polymath and a good influence in more ways than one, although he came of humble origins. Most modern accounts of his life depend upon the “labour of love” of his           memoirist James Raine, who described him as “not only a poet of considerable merit, and a county historian of the highest order” but a serious student of botany, geology, and philosophy, and a dedicated priest (1: 1-2). He was born in the parish of Shap, at Swindale, Westmorland, on 4 Nov. 1779, the son of a stonemason and slater, Isaac Hodgson, and his wife Elizabeth Rawes. He had a grammar-school education and worked first as a schoolmaster at several schools in the north of England, around Durham, Gateshead, and Newcastle. Without a university degree, he met the requirements for ordination (deacon 1804, priest 1805) by examination. His first collection of poems (1807) reflects his life as a teacher and parish priest in Lanchester, as well as his local antiquarian researches, but he moved on from Lanchester to Gateshead and then to Jarrow-with-Heworth. On 11 Jan. 1810 he married Jane Bridget Kell, the daughter of a local stone merchant; at least seven of their children were baptised at Heworth between 1811 and 1821. At Heworth he raised funds for the construction of a new church, designed by himself and consecrated in 1822. After fulfilling publishers’ commissions for accounts of Northumberland, Westmorland, and Newcastle, he conceived a major project, a comprehensive History of Northumberland, to be published by subscription, of which he saw five volumes published in his lifetime; completed by others, it was his monumental achievement. But Hodgson is remembered also for drawing attention to the deplorable conditions in collieries, following an explosion at the Felling pit in his parish: he raised money for the miners’ widows, called for improved safety conditions, and advocated a specialist colliers’ hospital. He was also influential in the development of the Davy lamp, designed to reduce the risk of fire in the presence of methane gas. Hodgson’s fortunes improved somewhat when he was presented to the living of Kirkwhelpington, Northumberland, in 1823, but three of their children died there and he relinquished it for nearby Hartburn in 1833, where he carried on his work despite failing health. He died at the vicarage on 12 June 1845 and was buried in the churchyard. (ODNB 23 Sept. 2022; findmypast.com 23 Sept. 2022; CCEd 23 Sept. 2022; J. Raine, A Memoir of the Rev. John Hodgson [1857])

 

Other Names:

  • J[ohn] Hodgson
 

Books written (2):

London: printed "for the author", 1807
Newcastle upon Tyne: Printed by D. Akenhead, 1810