HODGSON, William Nicholson (1801-1876), of 33 Duke Street, London and Newby Grange, near Carlisle, Cumberland

Born into one of Cumberland’s leading families, Hodgson was the only Conservative to sit for Carlisle between the 1832 Reform Act and the First World War. He was the grandson of William Hodgson of Houghton House, Cumberland, and the eldest son of Joseph Hodgson, a Carlisle solicitor.1R.S. Ferguson, Cumberland and Westmoreland MPs from the Restoration to the Reform Bill of 1867 (1871), 373. The last mayor of Carlisle prior to municipal reform, Hodgson took a considerable interest in railway development, becoming one of the first directors of the Lancaster and Carlisle railway. As a subsequent director of the London and North West railway (LNWR), Hodgson’s staunch defence of Carlisle’s interests, which were threatened by the growing importance of Crewe, won him the strong backing of local railway officials, upon whose vote, which numbered around thirty, he could always rely.2H.J. Hanham, Elections and party management: politics in the time of Gladstone and Disraeli (1978), 87. His parliamentary prospects, however, were never stable as he usually had to rely upon Liberal disunity for his election, a fact underlined by the interrupted nature of his tenure as MP for Carlisle. Moreover, although he frequently presented himself to his constituency as an ‘independent member’, this was largely born of electoral necessity rather than conviction, as he solidly voted with the Conservatives on all major issues.

At the 1847 general election Hodgson was brought forward at Carlisle by the Lowther interest, headed by the 2^nd earl of Lonsdale. Standing on ‘protectionist and protestant principles’ and backed by a vast majority of the city’s freemen, he was returned in second place, but following a petition against his return, 6 Dec. 1847, he was found, by his agents, guilty of treating, and was unseated, 6 Mar. 1848.3The Times, 27 July 1848; W.W. Bean, The parliamentary representation of the six northern counties of England (1890), 45-6; PP 1847-48 (156), x. 567-9. However, the election committee also concluded that, as the acts of treating were not committed at his expense, he was not disqualified from standing again, and at the subsequent by-election that month, which was a bitter campaign marked by Liberal infighting, he topped the poll.4The Times, 7 Mar. 1848; Liverpool Mercury, 14 Mar. 1848.

An occasional attender who, in his own words, ‘rarely occupied the time of the House’, Hodgson followed Disraeli into the division lobby on most major issues, although he voted against Roman Catholic relief, 8 Dec. 1847, and the removal of Jewish disabilities, 17 Dec. 1847.5Hansard, 31 Mar. 1859, vol. 153, c. 1196. Hodgson was present for 70 out of 219 divisions in the 1849 session: Hampshire Telegraph, 20 Oct. 1849. A defender of the shipping and landed interests, he divided against the repeal of the navigation laws, 23 Apr. 1849, and, backing Disraeli’s motion to relieve the distress of land owners, told the Commons that it was ‘his duty to vote for every reduction of taxation that might be proposed’, 11 Feb. 1851. In his first Parliament, he largely confined his handful of contributions to local matters, defending the integrity of Carlisle’s electorate during debates on corrupt practices, 4 Aug. 1848, 21 Feb. 1849. After presenting a petition from the handloom weavers of Carlisle, he pressed the government to intervene on their behalf by either assisting them to emigrate or enabling them to obtain better wages at home, 30 Apr. 1852.

Following a difficult canvass, in which he rather unconvincingly insisted that he had been a long-time supporter of free trade, Hodgson was defeated at the 1852 general election.6Daily News, 9 July 1852. He stood again, though, at the 1857 general election, opposing the Chinese war and backing a moderate extension of the suffrage, and, helped in no small measure by renewed internecine conflict within Carlisle Liberalism, he topped the poll.7Ibid., 28 Mar. 1857.

Reflecting his commercial interests, Hodgson sat on the 1857-8 select committee on accidents on railways.8PP 1857-58 (362), xiv. 560. He voted against the ballot, 30 June 1857, church rate abolition, 17 Feb. 1858, and Palmerston’s conspiracy to murder bill, 19 Feb. 1858, the defeat of which precipitated the collapse of the Liberal government. Thereafter he loyally supported Derby’s ministry, arguing that, on the subject of its reform bill, ‘the House had not treated Her Majesty’s Government with the candour and fairness it deserved’ and backing ‘the opinion that identity of franchise in counties and boroughs was not desirable in this country’. He went further than many ministers, though, by stating that ‘from his experience of the working men among his constituents ... the franchise might be safely extended to a large number of that class’, 31 Mar. 1859. At the 1859 general election, however, he had to, in the words of his Liberal opponent Sir James Graham, ‘swim with Lord Derby’s reform bill around his neck’, and following Hodgson’s protestations that he was offering as an ‘independent member’, Graham mocked him as a ‘hybrid, cross bred, spurious reformer’.9Daily News, 2 Mar. 1859. Opposed by a united local Liberal party, Hodgson was defeated in third place.

At the Carlisle by-election of November 1861, necessitated by Graham’s death, Hodgson attempted to regain his seat but, following a fractious contest, he was narrowly defeated by three votes.10Ibid., 27 Nov. 1861. Undeterred he offered again at the 1865 general election. He endured a hostile reception at the nomination, with his appearance greeted by the discharge of a pistol, but, backed by a united drink trade opposed to the Liberal candidate Wilfrid Lawson, owing to his introduction of the permissive bill, Hodgson topped the poll.11The Times, 13 July 1865; Newcastle Courant, 14 July 1865.

Despite his earlier insistence that he would ‘give every liberty to dissenters not to pay towards the maintenance of the church’, Hodgson voted against church rate abolition, 7 Mar. 1866.12Daily News, 27 Nov. 1861. He also opposed the Liberal government’s reform bill, 27 Apr. 1866. Underlining his opposition to increased state intervention in the railways, he objected to the railways (guards’ and passengers’ communication) bill, insisting that legislation would be superfluous until effectual means of communication between guard and passenger had been invented, 25 June 1867. He was largely absent for the major divisions on the Derby ministry’s representation of the people bill, but voted with Disraeli against the amendment to enfranchise compound ratepayers, 12 Apr. 1867. He opposed Gladstone’s resolutions on the Irish church, 3 Apr. 1868.

Contesting Carlisle for an eighth time, Hodgson was defeated in third place at the 1868 general election, but topped the poll at Cumberland East where, with the Conservative interest more stable, he held his seat until he died in harness at his London home in Duke Street, St. James’s, in April 1876. His effects were valued at under £16,000.13England and Wales, National Probate Calendar, Index of wills and administration, 1861-1941, 5 May 1876. He was succeeded by his nephew, Rev. Joseph Sturdy, residentiary canon of Carlisle.14B. Burke, A genealogical and heraldic history of the landed gentry of Great Britain and Ireland (1894), i. 970. A handful of his surviving letters are held at the British Library, London.15BL Add Mss 35789, f. 60; 35791, f. 362; 35792, f. 375; 35805, f. 35.