Thomas Hodgkin (historian)

For the British physician, his uncle, with the same name, see Thomas Hodgkin.

Thomas Hodgkin (29 July 1831 – 2 March 1913) was a British historian and biographer.

Biography

Hodgkin was son of John Hodgkin, barrister and Quaker minister, and Elizabeth Howard (daughter of Luke Howard).

In 1861 he married Lucy Ann (1841–1934) (daughter of Alfred Fox who created Glendurgan Garden and Sarah, born Lloyd, his wife). They had three sons and three daughters

Having been educated as a member of the Society of Friends and taken the degree of B.A. at the University of London, he became a partner in the banking house of Hodgkin, Barnett, Pease and Spence, Newcastle-on-Tyne, a firm afterwards amalgamated with Lloyds Bank.

While continuing in business as a banker, Hodgkin devoted a good deal of time to historical study, and soon became a leading authority on the history of the early Middle Ages, his books being indispensable to all students of this period.

He died on 2 March 1913. His and the Hodgkin family papers are held at the Wellcome Library in London

Family

The family of Thomas and Lucy Hodgkin is listed as:

• Lucy Violet (1869–1954) married John Holdsworth,
• John (died in infancy),
• Edward (1872–1921) married Katie Wilson,
• Elizabeth, known as Lily (born 1874) married Herbert Gresford Jones,
• Ellen Sophie (1875–1965) married Robert Carr Bosanquet,
• Robert Howard (24 April 1877–1957) married Dorothy Smith. He was Provost of The Queen's College, Oxford, author of A History of the Anglo-Saxons (1935)
• George (1880–1918) married Mary Wilson

Their daughter, Lucy Violet Hodgkin, later Holdsworth, (1869–1954) was a writer and gave the 1919 Swarthmore Lecture under the title Silent Worship : The way of wonder.

Their daughter, Ellen Sophia Bosanquet wrote an autobiography, published by her daughter, Diana Hardman, as Late Harvest: Memories, letters poems.

L.V.Hodgkin assembled his letters and wrote a memorial to her brother, George, published in 1923

Publications

His chief works are:

• Italy and her Invaders (8 vols., Oxford, 1880–1899)
• The Dynasty of Theodosius (Oxford, 1889)
• Theodoric the Goth (London, 1891)
• An introduction to the Letters of Cassiodorus: being a condensed translation of the Variae Epistolae of Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus, Senator (London, 1886).

He also wrote a Life of Charles the Great (London, 1897); Life of George Fox (Boston, 1896); and the opening volume of Longman's Political History of England (London, 1906).