Celebrating Hampshire Historians

Hudson, William Henry

4 August 1841 – 18 August 1922

W H Hudson was born in Argentina to American immigrant parents, who tried their hand at sheep farming. In his twenties he travelled widely, settling in England in 1869 and becoming a British citizen in 1900.  He was essentially a naturalist and ornithologist, but also wrote romances with a South American setting.  These attracted little public response but found favour with literary figures such as Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford.

He finally achieved fame with his books on the English countryside, including Hampshire Days (1903) A Shepherd’s Life (1910) and Dead Man’s Plack and an Old Thorn (1920).Full of imaginative, even imaginary, detail they did much to foster the ‘back to nature’ movement of the time and convey a sense of a vanishing rural existence in the county and on the Wiltshire border.

Hudson married his much older landlady in 1876, looking after her in later years. During his time as a teacher in the early years of the 20th century, he was supervisor and mentor to Kathleen Royds (Innes) who, after a life as an international educator, writer and pacifist, published local histories of the Hampshire area.

Hudson died in London and was buried, next to his wife, in Worthing.

Sources

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Portrait

Contribution to county’s history

Hudson wrote about rural life in the county in the early years of the 20th century. ‘Dead Man’s Plack’ is the monument raised in Harewood Forest in 1825 by Col. William Iremonger, to commemorate the supposed site of the alleged murder of Aethelwold by King Edgar in 963.

Relevant published works

• Hudson, W H (1903) Hampshire Days

• Hudson, W H (1910) A Shepherd’s Life

• Hudson, W H (1920) Dead Man’s Plack and an Old Thorn

Critical Comments

Other Comments

Contributor

Dave Allen, August 2021

Key Words

rural life, Hampshire Days, A Shepherd’s Life, Dead Man’s Plack and an Old Thorn,

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