While at Narva Hoddesdon was accused of trading on his own account instead of looking exclusively after the interests of the company. About 1574 he began to be employed by Queen Elizabeth as a financial agent in Germany; on 23 July 1575 he was commissioned to receive at Heidelberg fifty thousand crowns due to the queen from Conde, and on 11 June 1576 he was again sent to Germany to raise a loan of 200,000l., returning on 18 Oct. (Cal. State Papers, For. 1575-7, Nos. 252, 812, 995, 1133-5; Walsingham's 'Diary,' apud Camden Soc. Miscellany, vi. 28). In 1577 he went to Hamburg with 20,000f for Duke John Casimir, for the levy of reiters destined first for France, and afterwards for the Low Countries. In 1578 he was master of the Merchants Adventurers at Hamburg. At the same time he continued trading on his own account, and on 21 Aug. 1579 he was licensed 'to bring saltpetre and gunpowder from Hamburg' (Acts P. C. 1578-80, pp. 249, 309). In 1580 and 1581 he was engaged in commercial negotiations on behalf of the government at Emden and Antwerp (Cotton MSS. Galba, B. xi. 425, C. vii. 81, 86, 127, 142).
By this time Hoddesdon had acquired a considerable fortune, part of which he invested in purchasing the manor of Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, and, like most merchants of the time who became landed proprietors, he sought to improve his estates by enclosures. This brought him into collision with his tenants, and a dispute between them was pending for many years before the privy council and star chamber (Acts P. C. 1587-8 pp. 80, 85-7, 106, and 1590 pp. 213, 310, 318). On 26 June 1585, writing from Bishopsgate Street, Hoddesdon declined an office that had been offered him by the queen, unless he might have an allowance of 40s. a day (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1581-90, p. 247). Soon afterwards he became an alderman of Cambridge, which he represented in parliament February-April 1593, receiving 5l. 12s. wages at the rate of 2s. a day (Off. Ret. M.P. i. 427; Cooper, Annals of Cambridge, ii. 521). From November 1591 to November 1592 he served as sheriff of Bedfordshire (Lists of Sheriff's, P.R.O., 1898).
Before 1600 Hoddesdon had become master of the Merchants Adventurers' Company, and he was a staunch defender of their privileges against the infractions of them contained in licenses and monopolies granted to courtiers (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1601-3, pp. 160, 164). He was knighted by James I at Whitehall on 23 July 1603. just before the coronation, and died at Leighton Buzzard, where he was buried on 14 Feb. 1610 - 1611 (Addit. MS. 14417, f. 42). By his first wife he had a son, Francis, who was committed to Walsingham's care when Hoddesdon went to Hamburg in 1577, and seems to have died young; he is said to have had another son, Christopher, who turned papist. His only daughter, Ursula, married about 1585 Sir John Leigh of Stoneleigh, Warwickshire, and their son, Sir Thomas Leigh, married Mary, granddaughter of Lord-chancellor Ellesmere. Hoddesdon married, secondly, Elizabeth, daughter of William Blount of Olbaston, Leicestershire, whom he made his sole executrix, and by whom he had no issue.
[Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1580-1611, and For. 1575-7; Acts of the Privy Council, ed. Dasent, 1575-90; Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 14417, f. 42; Visitation of Bedfordshire (Harl. Soc.), p. 175; Lipscomb's Buckinghamshire, iii. 622; Metcalfe's Knights, p. 149; Chester's Marriage Licences; Tanner MS. cclxxxviii. 179 sqq.; Hakluyt's Principall Navigations, 1589, pp. 299, 301, 425, 426; Joseph von Hamel's England and Russia, 1854, pp. 125-8; Ehrenberg's Hamburg und England im Zeitalterder Konigin Elisabeth (1896); Early Voyages and Travels to Kussia (Hakluyt Soc.), pp. liv, 109, 218; information from Mr. A. J. Butler; authorities cited.]
HODGSON, BRIAN HOUGHTON (1800–1894), Indian civilian and orientalist, born at Prestbury in Cheshire on 1 Feb. 1800, was the last of a succession of four Brian Hodgsons, whose united ages averaged more than eighty-three years. His father was a partner in the banking house of Hawkins, Mills & Co. of Macclesfield, which failed, with many others, at the beginning of the century, but ultimately paid twenty shillings in the pound. He was from 1814 to 1820 superintendent of martello towers on the coast of Essex, and from 1820 to 1850 barrack-master in Canterbury. He ultimately died in Holland in 1858, aged ninety-two. His mother was Catherine, daughter of William Houghton of Manchester and Newton Park, Lancashire. His grandfather's sister Margaret was the wife of Beilby Porteus [q. v.], bishop of London.
Brian Houghton Hodgson was the second child and eldest son. His early education was obtained at Macclesfield grammar school under David Davies, and at Richmond under Daniel Charles Delafosse, both schoolmasters of repute in their day. In 1816 he was nominated to a writership in Bengal by James Pattison, and was admitted to the East India Company's college at Haileybury. In after life he used to say that he derived much
