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HODGSON, William Ballantyne (1815-1880)

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Metadata

Born: 1815

Died: 1880

Editorial Description

educationalist, political economist, reformer, and phrenologist; born in Edin of Calvinist parents, his father a working printer; intimate of G. COMBE, William Ellis, BRAY, R. COBDEN, Bright, and EPPS; sec Liverpool Mechanics' Inst, 1839, becoming its principal, 1844-7 at £400 p a; elected by the Merchant Co of Edin in 1871 to occupy their newly endowed chair of political economy at the University; prominent in nearly every liberal reform movement in the 1840s and 1850s; co-edited the works of the Unitarian reformer W. J. Fox; practiced mesmerism on George Eliot, 1844; wrote against "classical instruction" in the WEST REV, 1853; began lecturing on phrenology at age 22 in various Scottish towns to large audiences of operatives; delivered courses of lectures in Liverpool, 1840-7, Sheffield, 1847; in response to his lectures in Edin in 1855 the EDIN PHREN ASSN was established (it survived past 1864); also taught physiology and laws of health; M EDIN PHREN SOC, EDIN ETHICAL SOC, and PHREN ASSN. (DNB: MEB)

Works as Listed by Roger Cooter (1989)

• 542.1 — 542.1 "Remarks on the Secretiveness of Thieves," PHREN J, 10 (1836/7): 451-8.
• 542.2 — 542.2 "Phrenological Analysis of Patriotism. Read before the Edinburgh Ethical Society for the Study and Practical Application of Phrenology, by W. B. Hodgson, one of its Presidents," PHREN J, 10 (1836/7): 285-301, 602-13, 713-25.
• 542.3 — 542.3 "Case of (Supposed) Enlargement of the Organs of Locality and of Pain Felt in the Organs of Form, Size, etc. in a Landscape Painter," PHREN J, 11 (1838): 407-8.
• 542.4 — 542.4 "On Incidental Recognitions and Confirmations of Phrenology," PHREN J, 12 (1839): 146-9.
• 542.5 — 542.5 "On the Nature and Scope of Mechanics' Institutions," Liverpool Albion, reprinted in PHREN J, 14 (1841): 231-7. Phrenology in the British Isles.

Editorial Information

542. HODGSON, William Ballantyne (1815-80), educationalist, political economist, reformer, and phrenologist; born in Edin of Calvinist
parents, his father a working printer; intimate of G. COMBE, William
Ellis, BRAY, R. COBDEN, Bright, and EPPS; sec Liverpool Mechanics'
Inst, 1839, becoming its principal, 1844-7 at £400 p a; elected by
the Merchant Co of Edin in 1871 to occupy their newly endowed chair
of political economy at the University; prominent in nearly every
liberal reform movement in the 1840s and 1850s; co-edited the works
of the Unitarian reformer W. J. Fox; practiced mesmerism on George
Eliot, 1844; wrote against "classical instruction" in the WEST REV,
1853; began lecturing on phrenology at age 22 in various Scottish
towns to large audiences of operatives; delivered courses of lectures
in Liverpool, 1840-7, Sheffield, 1847; in response to his lectures in
Edin in 1855 the EDIN PHREN ASSN was established (it survived
past 1864); also taught physiology and laws of health; M EDIN
PHREN SOC, EDIN ETHICAL SOC, and PHREN ASSN. (DNB:
MEB)