Edward S. Hodgson Biography

Edward S. Hodgson (1866-1937) was a Scottish artist, etcher, and illustrator who began a career on the sea, but after an injury, switched to art. He is probably best known as the illustrator of 17 boys' adventure books by Percy F. Westerman.

Hodgson was born on 25 April 1866 at Arbroath, Angus, Scotland. His father, Alfred (c.1852-1881),  a machinist from Bordeaux, France, was then employed as a railway mechanic. His mother was Jessie Hanton Dryden (born c.1833).

Hodgson began his career as a sailor, but owing to a leg injury, he was forced to give up the sea. As he had a flair for painting, he took up art and was trained by W. M. Grubb at the High School of Dundee.

Hodgson married Mary Wilson Crowe (1871-1945) in St Peter's Parish, Dundee, in 1894.

Hodgson moved to England in 1894, settling at Bushey, Hertfordshire. His address in the 1911 census was St. Ninians, Finch Lane, Bushey. He was still at that address when he died in 1937, as was his wife when she died in 1945. Hodgson continued to work until almost the end of his life. 

After abandoning his maritime career, he studied art. However, ships and the sea were a constant feature of his output, especially as an illustrator. He was successful at the Dundee School of Art and was awarded the grade "good with a certificate" for both freehand drawing and practical geometry in the Second Grade exams in 1884. The following year, he was awarded a first-class art teachers' certificate in Practical Plane and solid geometry, and a second-class certificate in Building Construction, Elementary Stage, as well as a teacher's certificate in drawing and shading groups of models in the Third Class exams at the Dundee School of Art. He used his certificates and taught art in several private schools in the district.

Hodgson was not only a painter and illustrator, but also an etcher. He produced prints of two etchings in 1891, which were said to be "extremely pleasing both in conception and execution" and showed his "attainment of very creditable mastery of the technique of the etcher's art." In that year, he also produced a portfolio of six etchings of scenes in Dundee, which were said to be "graceful transcripts of local scenery".

In 1894, Hodgson moved to Bushey, Hertfordshire, to study under Hubert von Herkomer at the art school he had established there in 1883. When he exhibited a landscape, By Mead and Stream, at the Dundee Fine Art Exhibition in the following year, the Dundee Advertiser said that the landscape showed "how much he had profited by his studies under Herkomer."

By 1900, he was illustrating for magazines, and his work appeared in many periodicals of the day, including the Illustrated London News, The Strand, The Sketch and The Sphere. 

During the First World War, Hodgson worked for the Graphic, mainly producing pen-and-ink illustrations of the war at sea.

Books illustrated by Hodgson:-

The Toilers of the Sea 1896 by Victor Hugo

The Pearl Seekers 1907 by Alexander Macdonald

Sons of the Sea c.1900 by Frank H. Shaw

Among the writers whose work Hodgson illustrated were:-

R.M. Ballantyne (1825-1894)

John Barrow (1808-1898)

John Joy Bell (1871-1934)

F.S. Brereton (1872-1957)

Harry Collingwood (1843-1922)

Herbert Eastwick Compton (1853-1906)

James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851)

Edith Elizabeth Cowper (c.1859-1933)

Bernard Heldmann (1857-1915)

Victor Hugo (1802-1885)

T.T. Jeans (1871-1938)

W.H.G. Kingston (1814-1880)

Alexander Macdonald (1878-1939)

Frederick Marryat (1792-1848)

L.T. Meade (1844–1914)

Frank Hubert Shaw (1878-1960)

Dorothy à Beckett Terrell (1879-1949)

Jules Verne (1828-1905)

Percy Westerman (1875-1959). Hodgson illustrated seventeen of his books.