Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hodson, Margaret
HODSON, Mrs. MARGARET (1778–1852), authoress, born in 1778, was eldest daughter of Allen Holford, esq., of Davenham, and Margaret, daughter of William Wrench, esq., of Chester, and was descended from the ancient family of Holford of Holford and of Davenham, Cheshire. The mother, Mrs. Margaret Holford, was author of a comedy, ‘Neither's the Man,’ acted at Chester and published in 1799, 8vo; of a tale, ‘Fanny and Selina,’ with ‘Gresford Vale, and other Poems,’ 1798, 8vo; of ‘First Impressions, or the Portrait,’ a four-volume novel, 1801, 12mo; and of the ‘Way to Win Her,’ a comedy, 1814 (Biog. Dict. of Living Authors, 1816). At an early age Miss Holford followed her mother's example in attempting literary work. Her first work, ‘Wallace, or the Fight of Falkirk. A Metrical Romance,’ published in 1809, 4to, was noticed in the ‘Quarterly Review’ (iii. 63). In 1811 appeared a collection of ‘Poems,’ 8vo; in 1816 ‘Margaret of Anjou. A Poem in ten cantos,’ 4to; in 1820 ‘Warbeck of Wolfstein,’ 8vo; and in 1832 her last work, published after her marriage, ‘The Lives of Vasco Nuñez de Balboa and Francisco Pizarro. From the Spanish of Don Manuel Josef Quintana,’ 1832, 8vo. This work is dedicated to Robert Southey, and is dated from Sharow Lodge, near Ripon, 12 May 1832. Miss Holford was married (as second wife), on 16 Oct. 1826, at South Kirkby, Yorkshire, to the Rev. Septimus Hodson (see below). Mrs. Hodson was a correspondent and friend of Southey, and there are several letters addressed to her in the fifth and sixth volumes of his ‘Life’ (1850). She was also acquainted with Coleridge and Landor. She died at Dawlish, Devonshire, in September 1852, aged 74.
Her husband, Septimus Hodson (1768–1833), M.B. Camb., was rector of Thrapston, Northamptonshire, and chaplain in ordinary to the Prince of Wales; for some time he preached to the Asylum for Female Orphans at Lambeth. Besides sermons, he published an ‘Address on the High Price of Provisions in this Country,’ London, 1795, 8vo. He died on 12 Dec. 1833 (Gent. Mag. new ser. 1834, i. 338, lix. 474, lx. 630).
[Ormerod's Cheshire, ed. 1819, iii. 126–7; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. i. 113, 4th ser. ix. 534, x. 94, xi. 411; Eclectic Rev. xxix. 73; Monthly Rev. xciv. 235; Southey's Life, 1850, vols. v. and vi.]