E S Hodgson

E.S. HODGSON

by

Robert J. Kirkpatrick

E.S. Hodgson was a well-known artist in Dundee in the 1890s, but became better-known as an illustrator of boys’ adventure stories from around 1900 to the late 1930s. He was particularly associated with Percy F. Westerman, illustrating 17 of his books between 1908 and 1936.

Hodgson was born on 25 April 1866 in Arbroath, Forfarshire, Scotland, and christened Edward Smith Hodgson. His father Alfred was a machine-maker, born in Bordeaux, France, in 1825; his mother, Jessie Hanton, née Dryden, born in Arbroath in 1825, was formerly a flaxspinner who became a midwife. They had two other children: Paul, born on 3 January 1857, and Alfred, born in 7 June 1861.

At the time of the 1871 census Jessie and her three sons were living at 30 Grange Place, Alloa, Clackmannanshire, Scotland, with Paul being an apprentice draper. Alfred was living in West Calder, Lanarkshire, working as a mechanic. Whether or not Alfred and Jessie had separated at that time is not known.

Alfred Hodgson died in 1881, and in that year’s census Jessie was living at 2 Junction Place, Alloa, with her son Paul working as an engineer’s clerk. Her other sons, Alfred and Edward, had moved to London, where they were both working as shipping clerks and boarding with John Henly Lock, a bank messenger, and his family, at 8 Stafford Place South, Westminster.

According to a brief obituary in The Dundee Evening Telegraph after his death in 1937, Edward Hodgson “began his career as a sailor, but owing to an accident to his leg he was forced to give up the sea.” He subsequently studied at the Dundee School of Art from around 1882 to 1885. He worked in oil, watercolour and pastel, and went on to exhibit regularly in Dundee in the late 1880s and throughout the 1890s. He joined the Dundee Art Club in 1888, and in 1889 he was one of the founder members of the Dundee Graphic Arts Association, becoming its vice-president the following year. As well as being a painter, he also became an etcher, producing numerous engravings of his own work. He also taught art at several local schools.

At the time of the 1891 census Hodgson was working as a landscape artist and living with his mother at Baldovan Villa, Strathmarine, Angus (just north of Dundee), in the household of John and Mary Stephen, John being a retired shipping agent. Hodgson was also working out of a studio at 61 Reform Street, Dundee.

On 4 June 1894 he married Mary Wilson Crowe at St. Peter’s Church, Dundee. Born on 14 February 1871 in Dundee, she was the daughter of David Crowe, a wine and spirit merchant. They went on to have three children: David, born in 1895; Ronald, born in 1899 (both in Arbroath); and George, born in Bushey, Hertfordshire in 1902. The family had moved to Falconer Road, Bushey, to enable Edward to study under Professor Hubert Herkomer, a German-born portrait painter who was a member of the Royal Academy, the Royal Watercolour Society and a former Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford University.

Hodgson’s career as an illustrator appears to have begun in 1896, when he illustrated a re-issue of Victor Hugo’s The Toilers of the Sea. (He had earlier, in 1891, self-published Round About The Steeple, a collection of sketches of Dundee). Four years later, he began a long association with Cassell’s Magazine, and he went on to provide illustrations for The Pall Mall Magazine, The Sketch, The Sphere, The Illustrated London News, The Sunday Strand, The Wide World Magazine, The Strand Magazine (from 1904 onwards, and for which he provided 6 black and white illustrations for Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story "Danger!" in 1914), The Captain, Little Folks and The Quiver.

He also began illustrating boys’ adventure stories, most of which were sea-faring tales, such as Alexander Macdonald’s The Pearl Seekers: A Tale of the Southern Seas (1907), Harry Collingwood’s With Airship and Submarine (1907), John Barrow’s abridgement of Captain Cook’s Voyages (1908), T.T. Jeans’s Mr Midshipman Glover, R.N.: A tale of the Royal Navy of Today (1909), and Three Girls on a Yacht by E.E. Cowper (1910).

By the time of the 1911 census Hodgson had moved to St. Ninian’s, Finch Lane, Bushey. During the First World War he worked for The Graphic, mainly producing black and white pictures of the war at sea. He also had illustrations in Pearson’s Magazine, and after the war he worked for The Royal Magazine, The Windsor Magazine, The Girls’ Realm and Chums. He also continued illustrating boys’ adventure stories, becoming one of the most prolific illustrators of Percy F. Westerman’s stories, although his output declined at the beginning of the 1930s. His work also occasionally appeared in boys’ annuals, such as Blackie’s Boys’ Annual and Herbert Strang’s Annual.

Hodgson died in April 1937 at the Watford Peace Memorial Hospital, and was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium on 23 April 1937. His wife died two years later.

PUBLICATIONS
Round About the Old Steeple, Edward S. Hodgson, 1891  

Books illustrated by E.S. Hodgson
The Toilers of the Sea by Victor Hugo, George Routledge, 1896 (re-issue)
A Sweet Girl Graduate by L.T. Meade, Cassell & Co., 1902(?) (re-issue)
Facts and Phantasies of a Folio Grub by Herbert Compton, Anthony Treherne & Co., 1903 (with other artists)
Masterman Ready by Frederick Marryat, Collins, 1903  (re-issue)
The Pearl Seekers: A Tale of the Southern Seas by Alexander Macdonald, Blackie & Son, 1907
With Airship and Submarine: A Tale of Adventure by Harry Collingwood, Blackie & Son, 1907
A Lad of Grit: A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea in Restoration Times by Percy F. Westerman, Blackie & Son, 1908
A Middy in Command: A Tale of the Slave Squadron by Harry Collingwood, Blackie & Son, 1908
Captain Cook’s Voyages abridged by John Barrow,  Cassell & Co., 1908
Mr Midshipman Glover, R.N.: A Tale of the Royal Navy of Today by T.T. Jeans, Blackie & Son, 1909
First at the Pole: A Romance of Arctic Adventure by Frank H. Shaw, Cassell & Co., 1909
Peter the Whaler by W.H.G. Kingston, Cassell & Co., 1909 (re-issue)
Three Girls on a Yacht by E.E. Cowper, Cassell & Co., 1910
The Great Aeroplane: A Thrilling Tale of Adventure by F.S. Brereton, Blackie & Son, 1911
A Middy of the King by Harry Collingwood, Blackie & Son, 1911
The Hero of Panama: A Tale of the Great Canal by F.S. Brereton, Blackie & Son, 1911
A Kingdom of Dreams by J.J. Bell, Cassell & Co., 1911
The Sea Monarch by Percy F. Westerman, A. & C. Black, 1912
Sister-in-Chief by Dorothy à Beckett Terrell, Cassell & Co., 1912
Sons of the Sea: A Story for Boys by Frank H. Shaw, Cassell & Co., 1912
Violet Forster’s Lover by Richard Marsh, Cassell & Co., 1912
War and the Woman by Max Pemberton, Cassell & Co. 1912
Two Gallant Sons of Devon: A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess by Harry Collingwood, Blackie & Son, 1912
The Lighthouse by R.M. Ballantyne, Blackie & Son, 1912 (re-issue)
Turned Adrift: An Adventurous Voyage by Harry Collingwood, Blackie & Son, 1913
Kidnapped by Moors: A Story of Morocco by F.S. Brereton, Blackie & Son, 1913
The First Mate: The Story of a Sea Cruise by Harry Collingwood, Blackie & Son, 1914
Herbert Strang’s Book of Adventure Stories , Oxford Universoty Press, 1914 (with other artists)
Wonders of Land and sea by Graeme Williams, Waverley Book Co., 1914
The Nameless Island: A Story of Some Modern Robinson Crusoes by Percy F. Westerman, C. Arthur Pearson, 1915
British Battles on Land and Sea by Sir Evelyn Wood, Cassell & Co., 1915 (with other artists)
Ned Myers, or A Life Before the Mast by James Fenimore Cooper, Collins, 1915(?) (re-issue)
Rounding up the Raider: A Naval Story of the Great War by Percy F. Westerman, Blackie & Son, 1916
The History of the Great War by Newman Flower, Waverley Book Co., 196-1921 (with other artists)
Under the White Ensign: A Naval Story of the Great War by Percy F. Westerman, Blackie & Son, 1917
The Submarine Hunters: A Story of Naval Patrol Work in the Great War by Percy F. Westerman, Blackie & Son, 1918
The Secret Channel and other stories of the Great War by Percy F. Westerman, A. & C. Black, 1918 (with other artists)
Winning His Wings: A Story of the R.A.F. by Percy F. Westerman, Blackie & Son, 1919
A Sub and a Submarine: The Story of HM Submarine R19 in the Great War by Percy F. Westerman, Blackie & Son, 1919
The Salving of the Fusi Yama: A Post-war Story of the Sea by Percy F. Westerman, Blackie & Son, 1920
Brian of Synton: A Tale for Boys by H.S. Whiting, Arthur H. Stockwell, 1920
The Third Officer: A Present-day Pirate Story by Percy F. Westerman, Blackie & Son, 1921
Footplate Luck: Stories of Railway Adventure at Home and Abroad by Thompson Cross, Blackie & Son, 1922
Clipped Wings by Percy F. Westerman, Blackie & Son, 1923
Unconquered Wings by Percy F. Westerman, Blackie & Son, 1924
A Young Sea Rover by E.R. Spencer, Cassell & Co., 1925
A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne, Blackie & Son, 1925 (re-issue)
Deep Down: A Tale of the Cornish Mines by R.M. Ballantyne, Blackie & Son, 1925(?) (re-issue)
Whaling North and South by F.V. Morley, Century & Co., 1926
In Defiance of the Ban by Percy F. Westerman, Blackie & Son, 1931
A Book of Sea Stories by J.G. Fyfe, Blackie & Son, 1931
Captain Fosdyke’s Gold by Percy F. Westerman, Blackie & Son, 1932
Midshipman Raxworthy by Percy F. Westerman, Blackie & Son, 1936
Captain Flick by Percy F. Westerman, Blackie & Son, 1936
The Lighthouse by R.M. Ballantyne, Blackie & Son, 1938 (re-issue)