Author: Hodson, William
Biography:
HODSON, William (c. 1743-93: ancestry.com)
No birth record has been found but his age on university entrance and at death indicate a date in 1743 or 1744. He was the eldest son of Frances (Meakins) and Robert Hodson of Cambridge. He went to school at King’s Lynn, Norfolk, and was admitted as sizar at Trinity College, Cambridge, aged 16, on 6 Nov. 1759 (matric. 1760, Scholar 1761, BA 1764, MA 1767, BD 1789). Seventh Wrangler at graduation, he was made a Fellow of Trinity in 1765 and won the Seatonian Prize for English poetry in 1770 with the first title listed here. In 1773 he was a candidate for the Professorship of Chemistry, and though he failed in that application he stayed on at Trinity to become Senior Proctor in 1785 and Vice-Master 1789-93. He was ordained in 1771 and held the livings of Chesterton, Cambridge (1783-8), and of Hitchin, Hertfordshire (1788-94). On the side he wrote anonymously for the stage with some success: his two tragedies listed here and a farce, The Adventures of a Night (1783), were performed at Drury Lane. He died on 6 Oct. 1793, aged 49, and was buried at St. Clement’s, Cambridge, on 10 Oct. (ancestry.com 29 Sept. 2022; findmypast.com 29 Sept. 2022; CCEd 29 Sept. 2022; ACAD; Cambridge Intelligencer 9 Nov. 1793)