Author: Hudson, Henry
Biography:
HUDSON, Henry (b 1780: findmypast)
He was born in 1780 and baptised at St. Michael Bassishaw in the City of London on 19 Jan. 1781, the youngest child in a family of at least eight children (and youngest of three sons) of Giles Hudson, a wealthy London merchant later resident in Putney, Surrey, and his wife Catherine—who might have been his second wife, Catherine Deschamps, whom he had married in 1772, or a third wife, also Catherine, whose marriage record has not been found. (There are funeral monuments to two wives said to have been in the church of St. Nicholas, Chiswick: Mary who died in 1770, and a Catherine who died in 1775, but the latter is known only by report and might have been assigned a wrong date.) He was educated at Eton and matriculated at Merton College, Oxford, on 26 Oct. 1799, aged 18, but did not proceed to a degree. He was registered at Lincoln’s Inn in 1803 but does not appear to have been called to the bar. His poem describes him simply as “Esq.”—a gentleman—and flaunts his knowledge of both English and classical literature in the text and notes, quoting Homer in Greek without translation; but it gives few clues as to his identity or place of residence. It was widely advertised in the London press in 1817 and 1818 but seems, remarkably, to have attracted no reviews. There are no other known publications under his name. He might be the Henry Hudson who married Sarah Gibling in London on 2 Apr. 1815; the one who paid poor rates for a residence at 14 Charles St., Covent Garden, in 1839-41; and/or the one who was buried in Brixton, Surrey, on 19 Sept 1841, but the name is too common to provide certainty. (findmypast.com 26 Dec. 2022; ancestry.com 26 Dec. 2022; Alumni Oxonienses; Lincoln’s Inn Admission Register)