HODGKINS, William

If the evidence of election to local office can be believed, the mercer William Hodgkins was among the most prominent citizens of Bath in Henry VI’s reign. His origins have not been established, but he may have hailed from Bristol, since at the time of his death he owned property in that town, although no further evidence to support this inference has been discovered.4 The MP must be distinguished from several contemporary namesakes, including a Bruton merchant and a landowner from Frome (himself the son of another William Hodgkins): C241/229/10; CPR, 1416-22, pp. 370-1; 1446-52, p. 492. He was evidently established in Bath by 1429, when he was appointed a royal tax collector in the city, and he went on to serve in the same post on two subsequent occasions. Crown appointment aside, in the autumn of 1435 Hodgkins was elected to the first of five mayoralties (serving the first two terms successively), and he completed the civic cursus honorum within months of his final term in the office, when he joined the ranks of Bath’s aldermen. Even before his first mayoralty he had been elected to represent his neighbours in the Commons, and he was to take one of his city’s seats on a further four occasions. Perhaps as often as five times Hodgkins himself presided over the parliamentary elections in his city, and twice (in 1435 and 1450) he apparently went so far as to return himself.5 Hodgkins is explicitly named as returning officer only in 1437, but it is probable that he also conducted the elections during his other mayoralties: C219/14/5; 15/1, 2, 4; 16/1.

Even when not in office, the position that Hodgkins commanded in Bath found its reflection in his frequent attestation of local property deeds, and his occasional service as a feoffee. Among his most important associates was the prominent Walter Rich*, who had been his colleague in the Parliament of 1435. Hodgkins frequently witnessed Rich’s deeds and in January 1444 Rich entrusted his recently acquired holdings in Bath and its suburbs to him and two other feoffees, his neighbour William Drayton* and the local lawyer John Whittocksmead*.6 Bath Ancient Deeds, BC151/1/49-51; 2/80; 3/26; 4/84; 5/18, 59, 87; Som. Feet of Fines (Som. Rec. Soc. xxii), 193. Rather less than of his public career is known of Hodgkins’ private life. The extent of his property is uncertain, although it included three cottages in Southgate Street which he leased from the corporation in June 1454 for a term of 40 years.7 Bath Ancient Deeds, BC151/3/63. Similarly, little has been discovered about the scope of his mercantile interests: in the early 1430s he was in dispute with the Norwich mercer William Butte who, so Hodgkins claimed, had left his service at Bath before the end of his contracted term.8 CPR, 1429-36, p. 314. A few years later, the mercer was accused by the archdeacon of Wells, Master Thomas Bubwith (a kinsman of the former bishop of Bath and Wells, Nicholas Bubwith) of wrongfully seizing and detaining eight of the cleric’s horses.9 CP40/712, rot. 27d.

In June 1455 Hodgkins was elected to his fifth and final Parliament. Even while the Lords and Commons were in session, he seems to have fallen ill. On 20 July he made a brief will, asking to be buried in the chapel of St. Katherine in the parish church of St. Mary de Stalles at Bath, to which he bequeathed 60s., as well as his dwelling house and all its contents, in return for inclusion on the parish’s bede roll. His wife Joan, whom he appointed his sole executrix, was to have all his other property in Bristol and Bath, and was instructed to establish a chantry in her husband’s burial chapel. Hodgkins may not have lived to see out the first session of the Parliament, for probate of his will was granted on 13 Aug., just two weeks after the prorogation.10 Som. Med. Wills (Som. Rec. Soc. xvi), 166-7.