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William Ballantyne Hodgson (1815–1880) was a Scottish educational reformer and political economist.

[edit]Life

The son of William Hodgson, a printer, he was born at Edinburgh on 6 October 1815. In 1823 he entered the Edinburgh High School, and, after working for a short time in a lawyer's office, matriculated in November 1829, when just turned 14, at Edinburgh University. He took no degree as a student.

He employed himself in lecturing on literature, education, and phrenology at towns in Fife. On 1 June 1839 he was appointed secretary to the Mechanics' Institute of Liverpool. He was offered the editorship of a Liverpool newspaper in 1841, and that of a Manchester newspaper somewhat later, but declined both. In 1844, by his advice, a girls' school was added to the Liverpool Institute, and in the same year he was appointed principal of the institute. On 11 March 1846 he received the degree of LL.D. from Glasgow University.

From 1847 to 1851 he was principal of the Chorlton High School, Manchester; in 1848 he agitated for the education of women at the Royal Institution of Manchester. In 1851 he travelled abroad, remaining in Paris from October 1851 to July 1852. In 1853 he returned to Edinburgh. Here he gave courses of popular lectures on physiology, having qualified himself by attending the classes at the College of Surgeons. Because of his work in the field of education, he served in 1849 and again in 1864-64 as vice-resident of the College of Preceptors College of Teachers.

In 1854 he lectured at the Royal Institution, London, on economic science. He was appointed in 1858 an assistant commissioner of inquiry into primary education, and moved to London. He was examiner in political economy to London University from 1863 to 1868, and was placed on the council of University College. As a member of council he seconded in 1866 the confirmation of the report of the senatus in favour of the election of James Martineau to the vacant chair of mental philosophy; he resigned his seat on the council 19 January 1867, George Grote having successfully argued for George Croom Robertson over the Unitarian Martineau.

In 1870 Hodgson moved to Bournemouth, but in the following year he was elected (17 July 1871) by the Merchant Company of Edinburgh as the first occupant of the new chair founded (largely by his efforts) of commercial and political economy and mercantile law in the Edinburgh University. He frequently attended the Social Science congresses, acting at Norwich in 1873 as president of the educational section. In 1875 he was made president of the Educational Institute of Scotland. He was strong Liberal, but he took little active part in politics. He settled at Bonaly Tower, Colinton, a Scottish baronial house built by Lord Cockburn.

He died of angina pectoris at Brussels while attending the educational congress there on 24 August 1880. He was buried at the Grange cemetery, Edinburgh. He married, first (in 1841), Jane Cox of Liverpool, who died without issue on 1 July 1860; and secondly (on 14 January 1863), Emily Walmsley, second daughter of Sir Joshua Walmsley of Liverpool, who survived him, with two sons and two daughters.

[edit]Works

He published:

• ‘Lecture on Education,’ &c., Edinburgh, 1837.


• ‘Address … to the Mental Improvement Society of the Liverpool Mechanics' Institute,’ &c., Liverpool [1845].


• ‘The Secular, the Religious, and the Theological,’ &c., 1850.


• ‘On the Importance of the Study of Economic Science,’ &c., 1855; 1860; 1866.


• ‘On the Report of the Commissioners … to inquire into … Public Schools,’ &c., 1864,(two editions same year).


• ‘Classical Instruction,’ &c., 1866.


• ‘The Education of Girls,’ &c., 1864–6; 2nd edit. 1869.


• ‘The True Scope of Economic Science,’ &c., 1870.