Hodgson, Ralph Edwin

(1871-1962)

   He was born in, Darlington, County Durham, and brought up in Gatton, Surrey. In 1913 he founded The Sign of the Flying Fame, a journal that made an important contribution to printing design. He contributed to and edited Fry's, a magazine of sporting life, and throughout his life his name was associated with boxing, billiards, and especially dogs. The Plumage Act of 1921 was inspired by his campaign to end the trafficking in birds' feathers for women's apparel. He lectured in Japan from 1924 to 1938 and was awarded the Insignia of the Rising Sun. He then settled in Ohio, USA, and received an award for distinguished achievement from the American Academy and National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1946 and the Queen's gold medal for poetry in 1954. His first published poem, "The Storm Thrush," appeared in the Saturday Review in 1904. Poems (1917) contains "The Song of Honour," for which he had been awarded the Polignac prize in 1914. Some of his poems: "Babylon," "Flying Scrolls," "Hymn to Moloch," "Silver Wedding," "The Bells of Heaven," "The Birdcatcher," "The Bull," "Time, You Old Gypsy Man."

   Sources: British Poetry 1880-1920: Edwardian Voices. Paul L. Wiley and Harold Orel, eds. Appleton-CenturyCrofts, 1969. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Faber Book of Twentieth Century Verse. John Heath-Stubbs, and David Wright, ed. Faber and Faber, 1975. The New Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1950. Helen Gardner, ed. Oxford University Press, 1972. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.