Henry Hodgson (bishop)

Hodgson was born in Penrith into an ecclesiastical family [2] on 10 March 1856, educated at Shrewsbury and The Queen's College, Oxford and ordained in 1880.[3] He began his career as a school chaplain at Elizabeth College, Guernsey after which he was Vicar of Staverton, Northamptonshire then Headmaster of Birkenhead School. Later he was Vicar of Thornbury, Gloucestershire[4] then Rural Dean of Norham.[5] He was the Archdeacon of Lindisfarne from 1904 to 1914 when he was elevated to the Episcopate as the inaugural Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich,.[6] This was a new diocese, and Hodgson was its first bishop. How he came to be translated from the most northerly of parishes (his base was Berwick-upon-Tweed) to St Edmundsbury is probably through his candidature being promoted by Edgar Jacob, bishop of St Albans and formerly Bishop of Newcastle. Jacob had appointed Hodgson to Berwick, and Jacob had helped to prepare the legislation creating the new bishopric of Sheffield, St Edmundsbury & Ipswich, and Chelmsford which was part of the huge St Albans diocese.[7] Hodgson’s name had first arisen in the context of a see when Lichfield became vacant in 1913. Prime Minister Asquith, the key figure in the appointment to bishoprics, mentioned Hodgson’s name to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Randall Davidson, who was unimpressed “ Hodgson of Berwick I don’t know personally and from what little I have heard of him, I she’d certainly have not thought of him as episcopababilis”.[8] Hodgson was not appointed to Lichfield but, one year later, he was offered and accepted St Edmundsbury & Ipswich.

The monthly diocesan magazine shows that Hodgson was a strong supporter of the War. In October, 1916, he wrote “We have taken up arms on behalf of righteousness, truth and liberty; we look in the strenuous labours of the campaign, to moral and spiritual forces for support and final victory”.[9] In October, 1917, he wrote, showing no change to his view despite losing a son on 1 July 1916, “ ... no weakening of moral purpose and moral indignation; right and wrong, falsehood and truth stand where they stood in August, 1914, and we must stand by them still, however hard or horrible the conditions”.

Hodgson was regarded as a decidedly local bishop and not a national figure.[10] The diocesan magazines are filled with reports from parishes supporting the War effort. For example, it was reported in December, 1914, that £6 had been raised in a house-to-house collection in Cockfield for soldiers blankets, that Barrow had 100 men on active service, and that a YMCA tent had been erected on the green at Beyton. He died suddenly on 28 February 1921. There is a memorial to him at St Edmundsbury Cathedral.[11]

The war poet William Noel Hodgson was the fourth and youngest child of Bishop Hodgson.[12]