MAJOK W. HODSON. 



CHAPTEE I. 



BIRTH AND PARENTAGE — EARLY TRAINING 



SCHOOL LIFE AT RUGBY. 1821-1840. 



William Stephen Raikes Hodson, the subject of 

 this memoir, was born on the 19th of March 1821 

 at Maisemore Court, in a village near the Severn, 

 about two miles to the north of Gloucester. In a 

 family of eight children, he was the third son of 

 the Rev. George Hodson, afterwards Archdeacon 

 of Stafford and Canon of Lichfield, who was then 

 residing at Maisemore Court in order to be near 

 the Bishop of Gloucester, to whom he was chaplain, 

 and taking private pupils. The Rev. George 

 Hodson's mother. Miss Hewitt, was sister-in-law 

 to Archdeacon Paley, the well-known author of 

 ' Evidences of Christianity.' 



William Hodson's father came of a family which 

 had long been settled in the north of England. 

 The father himself had entered Trinity College, 

 Cambridge, where he took his degree in 1810 as 

 seventh Wrangler and second Chancellor's Medallist. 



