Thomas Hodgkin (historian)
Thomas Hodgkin | |
|---|---|
| Born | Template:Birth date United Kingdom |
| Died | March 2, 1913 (aged 81) Falmouth, United Kingdom |
| Occupation(s) | Historian, biographer, banker, Quaker minister |
| Known for | Italy and Her Invaders |
Thomas Hodgkin, FBA (29 July 1831 – 2 March 1913), was a distinguished British historian, biographer, banker, and Quaker minister. His most significant scholarly contribution is the eight-volume series Italy and Her Invaders, which examines the military conflicts during the Late Roman Empire.
Biography
Born to John Hodgkin, a barrister and Quaker minister, and Elizabeth Howard, daughter of meteorologist Luke Howard, Thomas Hodgkin married Lucy Ann Fox in 1861. Lucy was the daughter of Alfred Fox, the founder of Glendurgan Garden. Together, they had six children—three sons and three daughters.
Hodgkin received a Quaker upbringing and completed his Bachelor of Arts at University College London. He later acquired advanced degrees including D.C.L. and Litt.D., presumably from Oxford University. Professionally, he became a partner at Hodgkin, Barnett, Pease and Spence, a Newcastle-on-Tyne banking firm that subsequently merged with Lloyds Bank.
Despite his banking responsibilities, Hodgkin devoted considerable effort to historical scholarship, becoming recognized as a foremost expert on early medieval history. He passed away in Falmouth on 2 March 1913. The Wellcome Library in London holds his personal and family archives.
Family
The children of Thomas and Lucy Hodgkin were:
- Lucy Violet (1869–1954), who married John Holdsworth; an author who presented the 1919 Swarthmore Lecture titled Silent Worship: The way of wonder and compiled her father's correspondence.
- John (died in infancy)
- Edward (1872–1921), husband to Katie Wilson
- Elizabeth (Lily) (born 1874), married Herbert Gresford Jones
- Ellen Sophie (1875–1965), married Robert Carr Bosanquet; she wrote an autobiography later published by her daughter under the title Late Harvest: Memories, letters poems.
- Robert Howard (1877–1951), married Dorothy Smith; served as Provost of The Queen's College, Oxford, and authored A History of the Anglo-Saxons (1935).
- George (1880–1918), married Mary Wilson; their son Alan Hodgkin received the Nobel Prize in Physiology in 1963.
Publications
Among Hodgkin’s major scholarly works are:
- Italy and Her Invaders (8 volumes, Oxford, 1880–1899), reissued as The Barbarian Invasions of the Roman Empire by The Folio Society in 2001
- The Dynasty of Theodosius (Oxford, 1889)
- Theodoric the Goth (London, 1891)
- Introduction to the Letters of Cassiodorus, offering an abridged translation of the Variae Epistolae (London, 1886)
Additional publications include a Life of Charles the Great (London, 1897); a biography titled Life of George Fox (Boston, 1896); and the first volume of Longman's Political History of England (London, 1906).