Brian Houghton Hodgson
Brian Houghton Hodgson | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | 23 May 1894 London | (aged 94)
Brian Houghton Hodgson (1 February 1800 or more likely 1801
Early life
Hodgson was the second of seven children of Brian Hodgson (1766–1858) and his wife Catherine (1776–1851), and was born at Lower Beech,
India
At the age of seventeen (1818) he travelled to India as a writer in the
Nepal politics
Hodgson sensed the resentment of
Return to England
Hodgson resigned in 1844 when Lord Ellenborough posted
Ethnology and anthropology
During his posting in Nepal, Hodgson became proficient in
In 1837 Hodgson collected the first Sanskrit text of the Lotus Sutra and sent it to translator Eugène Burnouf of the Collége de France, Paris.[18]
Educational reform
During his service in India, Hodgson was a strong proponent of education in the local languages and opposed both the use of English as a medium of instruction as advocated by
No one has more earnestly urged the duty of communicating European knowledge to the natives than Mr. Hodgson; no one has more powerfully shown the importance of employing the vernacular languages for accomplishing that object; no one has more eloquently illustrated the necessity of conciliating the learned and of making them our coadjutors in the great work of a nation's regeneration.
— William Adam, 1838[21]
Ornithology and natural history
Hodgson studied all aspects of natural history around him including material from Nepal, Sikkim and Bengal. He amassed a large collection of birds and mammal skins which he later donated to the
His studies were recognised and the Royal Asiatic Society and the Linnean Society in England elected him. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in June 1877.[26] The Zoological Society of London sent him their diploma as a corresponding member. The Société Asiatique de Paris and the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle also honoured him. Around 1837 he planned an illustrated work on the birds and mammals of Nepal. The Museum d'Histoire Naturelle de Paris and other learned bodies came forward as supporters, three hundred and thirty subscribers registered in India, and in July 1837 he was able to write to his father that the means of publication were secured: "I make sure of three hundred and fifty to four hundred subscribers, and if we say 10 per copy of the work, this list should cover all expenses. Granted my first drawings were stiff and bad, but the new series may challenge comparison with any in existence." He hoped to finish the work in 1840.[27]
In 1845, he presented 259 bird skins to the Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham, and Newcastle upon Tyne.[28]
After retiring to Darjeeling he took a renewed interest in natural history. During the spring of 1848 he was visited by Sir Joseph Hooker. He wrote to his sister Fanny:[29]
I have still my accomplished and amiable guest, Dr. Hooker, with me, and am even thinking of accompanying him on an excursion to the foot of the snows. Our glorious peak Kinchinjinga proves to be the loftiest in the range and consequently in the world, being 28,178 feet above the sea. Dr. Hooker and I wish to make the nearer acquaintance of this king of mountains, and we propose, if we can, to slip over one of the passes into Tibet in order to measure the height of that no less unique plateau, and also to examine the distribution of plants and animals in these remarkable mountains which ascend from nearly the sea-level, by still increasing heights and corresponding changes of climate, to the unparalleled elevation above spoken of. Dr. Hooker is young in years but old in knowledge, has been at the Antarctic Pole with Ross, and is the friend and correspondent of the veteran Humboldt. He says our Darjiling botany is a wondrous mixture of tropical and northern forms, even more so than in Nepal and the western parts of the Himalayan ranges ; for we have several palms and tree-ferns and Cycases and Musas (wild plantain), whereas to the westward there are few or none of these. Cryptogamous plants abound yet more here than there, especially fungi. Every old tree is loaded with them and with masses of lichens, and is twined round by climbing plants as big as itself, whilst Orchideae or air plants put forth their luscious blossoms from every part of it. Dr. Hooker has procured ten new species of rhododendrons, one of which is an epiphyte, and five palms and three Musas and three tree-ferns and two Cycases. These are closely juxtaposed to oaks, chestnuts, birches, alders, magnolias, Michelias, Oleas, all of enormous size. To them I must add rhododendrons, including the glorious epidendric species above spoken of, and whose large white blossoms depend from the highest branches of the highest oaks and chestnuts. Laurels too abound with me as forest trees, and a little to the north are the whole coniferous family, Pinus, Picea, Abies, with larch and cedar and cypress and juniper, all represented by several species and nearly all first-rate for size and beauty. Then my shrubs are Camelias and Daphnes and Polygonums and dwarf bamboos ; and my herbaceous things, or flowers and grasses, bluebells, geraniums, Cynoglossum, Myriactis, Gnaphalium, with nettles, docks, chickweeds, and such household weeds. I wish, Fan, you were here to botanise with Dr. Hooker ; for I am unworthy, having never heeded this branch of science, and he is such a cheerful, well-bred youthful philosopher that you would derive as much pleasure as profit from intercourse with him. Go and see his father Sir William Hooker at the Royal Gardens at Kew.
He wrote in 1849 on the physical geography of the Himalayan region, looking at the patterns of river-flows, the distributions and affinities of various species of mammals, birds and plants while also looking at the origins of the people inhabiting different regions.[30]
Allan Octavian Hume said of him:[33]
Mr. Hodgson's mind was many-sided, and his work extended into many fields of which I have little knowledge. Indeed of all the many subjects which, at various times, engaged his attention, there is only one with which I am well acquainted and in regard to his researches in which I am at all competent to speak. I refer of course to Indian Ornithology, and extensive as were his labours in this field, they absorbed, I believe, only a minor portion of his intellectual activities. Moreover his opportunities in this direction were somewhat circumscribed, for Nepal and Sikkim were the only provinces in our vast empire whose birds he was able to study in life for any considerable period. Yet from these two comparatively small provinces he added fully a hundred and fifty good new species to the Avifauna of the British Asian Empire, and few and far between have been the new species subsequently discovered within the limits he explored. But this detection and description of previously unknown species was only the smaller portion of his contributions to Indian Ornithology. He trained Indian artists to paint birds with extreme accuracy from a scientific point of view, and under his careful supervision admirable large-scale pictures were produced, not only of all the new species above referred to, but also of several hundred other already recorded ones, and in many cases of their nests and eggs also. These were continually accompanied by exact, life-size, pencil drawings of the bills, nasal orifices, legs, feet, and claws (the scutellation of the tarsi and toes being reproduced with photographic accuracy and minuteness), and of the arrangement of the feathers in crests, wings, and tails. Then on the backs of the plates was preserved an elaborate record of the colours of the irides, bare facial skin, wattles, legs, and feet, as well as detailed measurements, all taken from fresh and numerous specimens, of males, females, and young of each species, and over and above all this, invaluable notes as to food (ascertained by dissection), nidification and eggs, station, habits, constituting as a whole materials for a life-history of many hundred species such as I believe no one ornithologist had ever previously garnered. ...
Hodgson combined much of Blyth's talent for classification with much of Jerdon's habit of persevering personal observation, and excelled the latter in literary gifts and minute and exact research. But with Hodgson ornithology was only a pastime or at best a parergon, and humble a branch of science as is ornithology, it is yet like all other branches a jealous mistress demanding an undivided allegiance; and hence with, I think, on the whole, higher qualifications, he exercised practically somewhat less influence on ornithological evolution than either of his great contemporaries. ...
Many birds of the Himalayan region were
Personal life and death
In 1839 he wrote to his sister Fanny that he did not eat meat or drink wine and preferred Indian food habits after his ill health in 1837.[38] Due to his strict vegetarian diet he required the nickname "Hermit of the Himalayas".[39]
During his life in India, Hodgson fathered two children (Henry, who died in Darjeeling in 1856, and Sarah, who died in Holland in 1851; a third child possibly died young) with a Kashmiri (possibly, although recorded as a "Newari") Muslim woman, Mehrunnisha, who lived with him from 1830 until her death around 1843. Worried about the abuse and discrimination in India of 'mixed-race' children, he had his children sent to Holland to live with his sister Fanny, but both died young. He married Ann Scott in 1853 who lived in Darjeeling until her death in January 1868. He moved to England in 1858 and lived at Dursley, Gloucestershire, and then at Alderley (1867, where his neighbours included Marianne North). In 1869 he married Susan, daughter of Rev. Chambré Townshend of Derry, who outlived him. He had no children from his marriages. He died at his home on Dover Street in London on 23 May 1894 and was buried at Alderley churchyard in Gloucestershire.[2][14][40]
Hodgson refers to the ornithologist Samuel Tickell as his brother-in-law.[41] Tickell's sister Mary Rosa was married to Brian's brother William Edward John Hodgson (1805 – 12 June 1838).[42] Mary returned to England after the death of William Hodgson and married Lumisden Strange in February 1840.[43]
Honours
Hodgson was awarded the
He is commemorated in the
Selected publications
- Hodgson, B. H. (1836). "Synoptical description of sundry new animals, enumerated in the Catalogue of Nepalese Mammals". Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 5: 231–238.
- Hodgson, B. H. (1838). "Classified catalogue of Nepalese mammalia". Annals of Natural History. 1 (2): 152−154.
- Hodgson, B. H. (1841). "Classified catalogue of mammals of Nepal". Calcutta Journal of Natural History and Miscellany of the Arts and Sciences in India. 4: 284−294.
- Hodgson, B. H. (1841). Illustrations of the Literature and Religion of the Buddhists. Serampore: self-published.
- Hodgson, B. H. (1842). "Notice of the mammals of Tibet, with descriptions and plates of some new species". Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 11 (1): 275–289.
- Hodgson, B. H. (1846). Catalogue of the Specimens and Drawings of Mammalia and Birds of Nepal and Thibet. London: British Museum.
- Hodgson, B.H. (1847a). "On a new form of the Hog kind or Suidae". Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 16 (1): 423–428.
- Hodgson, B. H. (1847b). "Description of the wild ass (Asinus polydon) and wolf of Tibet (Lupus laniger)". Calcutta Journal of Natural History. 7: 469–477.
- Hodgson, B. H. (1847c). "Observations on the manners and structure of Prionodon pardicolor". Calcutta Journal of Natural History. 8: 40–45.
- Hodgson, B. H. (1847d). Essay the first; On the Kocch, Bódo and Dhimál tribes. Calcutta: J. Thomas, Baptist Mission Press.
- Hodgson, B. H. (1847e). "On the tame sheep and goats of the sub-Himalayas and of Tibet". Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 16 (2): 1003–1026.
- Hodgson, B. H. (1849). "On the physical geography of the Himalaya". Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 32: 761–788.
- Hodgson, B. H. (1853). "Felis macrosceloides". Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. I. Mammalia: Plate XXXVIII.
- Hodgson, B. H. (1874). Essays on the Languages, Literature and Religion of Nepal and Tibet. London: Trübner & Company.
- Hodgson, B. H. (1880a). Miscellaneous Essays Relating to Indian Subjects. Vol. 1. London: Trübner & Company.
- Hodgson, B. H. (1880b). Miscellaneous Essays Relating to Indian Subjects. Vol. 2. London: Trübner & Company.
References
- ^ ISBN 0-415-31215-9.
- ^ doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/13433. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ Hunter 1896, p. 4.
- ^ Hunter 1896, p. 17.
- ^ Hunter 1896, pp. 255, 327.
- ^ Hunter 1896, p. 328.
- ^ Hunter 1896, p. 333.
- ^ Hunter 1896, pp. 90, 92.
- ^ Hunter 1896, p. 239.
- ^ Hooker, Joseph Dalton (1848). "Letter to Charles Darwin from J. D. Hooker 13 October 1848". Darwin Correspondence Project, University of Cambridge. Retrieved 13 March 2020.
- ^ Hunter 1896, p. 259.
- ^ Hunter 1896, p. 327.
- ^ Hodgson, B.H. (1847). Essay the first on the Kocch, Bodo and Dhimal Tribes. Calcutta.
- ^ .
- ISBN 978-1-315-81660-9.
- ^ Hunter 1896, p. 270.
- ^ Tivadar, Duka (11 August 1895). "Ket Angol Tudos" (PDF). Vasárnapi Újság (in Hungarian). p. 1.
- ISBN 978-0-691-15220-2.
- ^ Hodgson 1880b, pp. 255-348.
- JSTOR 2111957.
- ^ Adam, William (1838). Third Report on Education in Bengal. Calcutta: Military Orphan Press. p. 200.
- ^ JSTOR 41431643.
- ^ Hodgson 1847a.
- S2CID 132380919.
- .
- ^ "[Correspondence]". Freeman's Journal. 8 June 1877. p. 5.
- ^ Hunter 1896, p. 85.
- ^ "Natural History Society". Newcastle Journal. 1 November 1845. p. 2.
- ^ Hunter 1896, pp. 245–247.
- ^ Hodgson 1849.
- ^ Hodgson, B. H. (1844). "[Letter to the Society]". Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal: xxi–xxii.
- ^ Torrens, H. T. (1844). "Read the following Letter from the Society's London Agents". Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal: cix.
- ^ Hunter 1896, pp. 304–305.
- Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (2020). "IOC World Bird List Version 10.1". International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 13 March 2020.
- ^ Darwin 1868, p. 26.
- ^ Hodgson 1847e.
- ^ Darwin 1868, p. 95.
- ^ "Brian Hodgson of Nepal". London Daily News. 2 December 1896. p. 9.
- ^ Hunter 1896, p. 87.
- ^ Dhungel, R. K. (2004). "Opening the chest of Nepal's History: the survey of B.H. Hodgson's Manuscripts in the British Library and the Royal Asiatic Society, London" (PDF). SAALG Newsletter. 3: 65–73.
- ^ Hodgson 1880b, p. 128.
- ^ Hunter 1896, p. 88.
- ^ Urban, S. (1840). "Antiquarian Researchers". The Gentleman's Magazine. New Series XIII: 202.
- ^ "It was officially announced at Oxford". Western Daily Press. 14 June 1889. p. 7.
- ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5. ("Hodgson", p. 124).
Sources
- Darwin, Charles (1868). The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication. Vol. 1. London: John Murray.
- Hunter, W. W. (1896). Life of Brian Houghton Hodgson. London: John Murray.
Further reading
- Mitra, R. (1882). The Sanskrit Buddhist Literature of Nepal. Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal.
- Cust, R. N. (1895). "Brian Houghton Hodgson, F.R.S". Linguistic and Oriental Essays: Written From the Year 1861 to 1895. London: Trübner & Co. pp. 75–80.
- Lydekker, R. (1902). "Some famous Anglo-Indian naturalists of the nineteenth century". Indian Review. 3: 221–226.
- Smith, M. A. (1935). The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma: 3. Reptilia and Amphibia. Vol. 2. Sauria. London: Taylor & Francis.
- Cocker, M.; Inskipp, C. (1988). A Himalayan Ornithologist: The Life and Work of Brian Houghton Hodgson. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Mearns, B.; Mearns, R. (1988). Biographies for Birdwatchers: The Lives of Those Commemorated in West Palearctic Bird Names. London: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-487422-3.
- Dickinson, E. C. (2006). "Systematic notes on Asian birds. 52. An introduction to the bird collections of Brian Houghton Hodgson". Zoologische Mededelingen Leiden. 80–5 (4): 125–136.