Potted History
1871 Born in Darlington on 9th September. His father was a coal mining manager; his mother ran a small private school. Eighth of eleven siblings. Thought to have left home in his early teens to join a travelling ‘troupe’ as a scene artist, including a stint in America. Passionate about Boxing, Billiards, Birds and Bulldogs! Loved talking…
For twenty years, from approx. 1895, Hodgson was an innovative cartoon illustrator for several London magazines on Fleet Street.
Married:
Janet ‘Dolly’ Chatteris, 1896 (grew up near Regents Park, London). Died in 1920
Muriel Fraser in London, c.1923/4 (Canadian-USA). Ended 1927, Divorced 1932
Aurelia Bolliger,1933 (grew up in Ohio, USA)
1907 first published poems: The Last Blackbird and Other Lines
Considered to be ‘culturally important’ by scholars and ‘part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it’ – Republished as a facsimile in 2016.
1912-1922
Joined a group of poets who began to meet regularly around the time that King George V succeeded to the throne. Known as the ‘Georgians’, they broke away from the classical Victorian era and returned to the roots of romanticism and simplicity of nature. Of the five Anthologies produced by the group, Hodgson features in the second (1915) and third (1917) editions.
In 1912-13, Claud Lovat Fraser, Holbrook Jackson and Hodgson founded their own small press called Flying Fame which was intended to provide ‘ordinary people’ with accessible poetry.
Hodgson was also an early environmentalist and actively campaigned for the Plumage Bill which was eventually passed in 1921 (prohibiting the importation of exotic feathers).
1924- August 1938
Invited to teach English at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan.
Translated Japanese classical poetry and revised the revered Manyoshu poems (20 volumes). Sabbatical in the UK, August 1927-1928.
1938- 1961
Second Sino-Japanese war. Left Japan for America in 1938, via an extended stay in the UK – by then aged 67. Whilst in London he was implored by T S Eliot to illustrate his Possum Cats but Hodgson prevaricated being too busy moving home & country. In the end, in spite of ‘this high honour’ he wrote from America, reluctantly turning down the invitation.
The Hodgson’s spent a couple of years looking for somewhere to live and, in 1941, settled on a small farm near Minerva, Ohio. This is where Hodgson spent the next twenty years, as a semi recluse, cared for by Aurelia.
In anticipation of his 90th birthday in 1961, a compilation of letters and poems was prepared. A wide range of poets, young and old, made contributions including John Masefield, T S Eliot and W H Auden. Hodgson also received a surprise letter from the President – J F Kennedy.
By the following year, however, he was bedridden and losing his sight. After several falls and a serious stroke, he died in hospital on 3rd November 1962. Aurelia survived him for another 26 years, much of which time was spent sorting through her husband’s paperwork. She died in 1988, in Ohio, aged 89.
Awards:
1914 Royal Society of Literature Polignac prize for Song of Honour and The Bull
1938 Order of the Rising Sun from the Japanese Government
1946 American National Institute of Arts and Letters Award of $1,000 as ‘an eminent foreign poet living in America for distinguished achievement’
1954 Queens’ Gold Medal for Poetry
For further information:
See Dreaming of Babylon by John Harding. This was published in 2008 before the author knew anything about Silvia, other than that she was one of Hodgson’s ‘adoring’ young followers! I discovered this book in 2018 when I began to think in terms of writing one about Silvia. Subsequently, I made contact with Harding and he generously sent me some useful notes which he made during his researches, relating to Silvia.
Also, Article in Country Life (02.12.1971, p1566) on the centenary of his birth.
Silvia’s Mentor & Guru
Silvia first met Hodgson, during WW1, when she was still on the stage. She went to visit an artist friend called Vere Chatteris whose mother had died when she was young. As a result, Vere lived with her sister Dolly who was Hodgson’s first wife. On this occasion, Hodgson was at home, on leave, and opened the door on Silvia’s arrival. A chord must have been struck…
Hodgson was 21 years her senior, without children, and I get the impression that a middle-aged infatuation developed. He liked the company of attractive, young women who would admire him rather than confront him. His use of language could be flattering and persuasive – and he was clearly stimulating company, as were his literati friends.
At the time, Silvia was struggling to earn a living as an actress, her brother was on active service in Mesopotamia and she needed a father figure to guide her. She was wondering whether to study art at the Slade School. For his part, Hodgson was anxious about Dolly who had some kind of nervous disposition and by 1918 was placed in a psychiatric hospital in South London.
CORRESPONDENCE
An extensive correspondence between Silvia and RH (as he always signed himself) continued for decades – as it did with Muriel and Aurelia. Copies can be found, variously, in the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library (Yale University) and Bryn Mawr College (PA), as well as in family collections.
Part One: 1915-1918
There are seven letters/notes written by RH in this period. They are undated which means the order is not known but a calculated guess can be made from certain references. In each one, Hodgson tells Silvia that he will let her know when he will be ‘up’ or ‘back in town’. We have not had sight of any corresponding letters written by Silvia to Hodgson.
At the outset of WW1, RH had volunteered for foreign service but was turned down on medical grounds and spent most of the war patrolling the East Coast. Three of his missives show they are written from the Britannia Garrison in Norwich.
The extracts below have been selected to give a flavour of their early relationship which developed from a distance.
1 …Don’t think of it. Quite ridiculous. You have neither head nor body for it and I can’t suggest anything either. …It was a great happiness seeing you – but I’m uneasy about you – tired and thinner you looked.
…Let me know how things go with you. RH
2 … I wish to goodness I could see you. …I don’t quite see what use the Slade will be to you, your whole work is so remote from anything you can learn there. …remember that your work is a form of poetry. …By the way, your letter like many another you’ve written reminds me that you still have another gift worth developing – though you chid(e) me for saying so.
…RH
3 (RH) waiting ‘patiently’ for a drawing from Silvia
Dislikes cold, spiky drawings (which) the very advanced artists are doing these days
Admires Constable and Corot for seeing trees the way I see them
True eyes will always look for truth… but each generation will see truth differently
…With love, ever RH
4 I sat down to write a hundred things to you on Sunday – I just couldn’t. I felt they could only be talked when we meet. I’ve got to like you far too much and the dread of finding myself to be only one of your ‘collection’… sends me cold all over.
I do so want to see a Silvia… independent of everybody and all things – coming to the full.
…But you know that I am always yours, RH
5 How I wish you could get something settled. This eternal worry must be the devil himself to you. …You have genius my lovely Silvia and it will out one day… You have to become Silvia Fausset, artist, somehow and certainly will.
…Ah my dear I feel like making hot love to you – I refrain. RH
6 I must be plain, I went away that day disappointed, dismissed – I’d looked forward to too much and found that you had wearied or had too many other things to attend to.
…To me you’ll always be a sort of idol, love always RH
7 …all this, my dear Silvia will tow you at last to a happiness you barely dream of today – by then you’ll have lost
a good deal of your beauty
will no longer be deluged by invitations to lunch from men who turn silly at
the thought of you
a little of your vanity (you haven’t a great deal)
and nearly all of your friends.
Meanwhile…(too feint to read), Ever RH
Part Two: 1924- 1931
Once the Hodgsons moved to Sendai, Silvia and Muriel wrote extensive letters to each other from 1924 to 1926 – see Correspondence on Muriel’s page. Silvia wrote two letters to RH in 1925 but we don’t have copies of any received from him until a couple of months before Muriel’s departure to America.
1925, Silvia to RH from Albert Place, SW7: January 26th (possibly a draft) & 29th (page/s missing)
Silvia was suffering from Chickenpox: ‘I’ve been imprisoned in my room for 2 weeks, and there’s another week to run, before the health officer (paid for by the rates) comes with his paraphernalia to fumigate the room. I will write now, because it is a consoling occupation to talk to you…’ She is learning to draw whilst ‘imprisoned’ with special brushes given to her by RH. She lists some drawings that she has arranged for another set of Carnaby Prints (which must have morphed into Zoo Portraits).
1927-31, RH to Silvia
1 1927, 6th Feb – Sendai
Concerning her next book, RH is full of advice such as ‘Go your own way; listen of course and if you gain anything from criticism… be thankful for it, but you will probably get little/bitter(?) help from the outside. You will do better to cling to Silvia and be content.’ In the process, we also learn that Silvia now has a studio in Jouberts Mansions (Jubilee Place, Chelsea).
2 1928, 6th July – 31 Downshire Hill, Hampstead
It sounds as if Silvia had been very ill – and in quarantine again. RH sends regards to her Uncle ‘and sympathy as it (the illness) must have been devastating to the household’ but her condition is not specified. This letter reveals RH’s concern, along with relief that she is getting better. The rest of the text is about the books he is taking back to Japan.
3 1929 or 1930, New Year – Sendai
RH thanks Silvia effusively for two books (unnamed) that she has sent him. He goes on to say ‘I glowed to read of your arrival among the peerage of Bloomsbury – Thrones & Dominions(?), Princes and Powers.’ It would be fascinating to know how this came about. Desmond McCarthy is a possible link but the Bloomsbury set doesn’t seem to feature in any other correspondence.
Hodgson asks her not to believe any rumours about him that she might hear and adds that he would let her know his intentions before informing most other people. He then requests information about an artist because, for just a few shillings, he had picked up a ‘little masterpiece’ of a scene near Hampstead, painted in oils by a Victorian landscape artist called Brooke.*
Next, he writes about Sassoon and his recently published book Memories of a Fox Hunting Man (1928). Evidently, Sassoon gave the proof sheets to RH, with all his corrections ‘to be bound one day by none but the best masters in calf’. RH has a ‘pretty good collection of Sassoonamania’ and speaks highly of him. In Letter 4, he notes that Sassoon and Silvia are his ‘best correspondents’ (along with Henry Salt) but recognises that, as he often takes a year to respond, people give up writing to him!
*Edward Adveno Brooke (1821-1910) best known for The Gardens of England (1857)
4 1930, 25th April – Sendai
Silvia has sent out some drawings which RH commends as ‘masterly – in fact, you’ve got to the top of the hill and (I) long hope you stay there’. He suggests it’s time for an exhibition and wishes her luck if she has one (which she did later that year). He reminds her of the first drawing she did at the zoo – a little pencil European Bison which RH keeps close by; he describes it as ‘extraordinarily good and still is’. He is planning to visit London in 1931 and bemoans the fact that ‘the best thing in life is good talk but I haven’t heard any since I left London’ – could this be an exaggeration or frustration with his circumstances?
5 1931, 8th July to 11th August – Nine short notes on a trip to the UK.
The first is from a P & O Steam Ship approaching England; the last, on the return journey to Japan, is from SS Kashgar which had reached Aden. The notes in between just state days, rather than dates. A couple are from 2 Hampstead Square, and one is from Thurstons (Leicester Square), whilst attending a special billiards match. The remainder have no address. Most of the notes are taken up with suggesting times to meet or with making arrangements for Aurelia who had arrived separately.
Part 3: 1933-38
1. 1933, 6th April – Sendai; Written just before Silvia & Athol were married.
Aurelia writes: I was so glad to get your letters of good news this week. Your big day is so near at hand now. I shall think of you in the costume you described… It’s trite to say ”Here’s wishing you every happiness thru a long future” but really it’s what I do wish for you both.
After some general chit-chat, Aurelia passes on a raft of messages from Ralph. He expects to see a wonderful flowering in Silvia’s work but has certain fears that you may become a society hostess, in which case you’ll go to your doom but be an admirable wife and mother…
The one thing he never wants you to say, at least for 20 or 30 years, is ‘I was an artist’.
Try to remember that as artist you are still the lonely soul that you were – hundreds of times going up to the zoo on buses on wet mornings and spiritually you must do so still.
Don’t let your marriage interfere with your correspondence at least after your honeymoon.
Aurelia does note that Ralph is telling Silvia all about her work, exactly as he has done over many years, and he doesn’t know whether he will ever rid himself of the habit!
2. 1934, 11th April – Sendai
Aurelia thanks Silvia many, many times for the green bag she has received; it turns Aurelia’s friends green with envy because they can never hope to have one like it. She also refers to the lion drawing which Silvia sent out for Christmas. RH constantly admires it declaring it as a ‘masterpiece’ and doubts whether anyone would guess the artist is a woman; not that that means so much, except inasmuch as women artists are rarer than men. And how a woman as feminine as yourself can produce such masculine work is one of the mysteries that (RH) still puzzles over.
Ralph requests a bushel of news… not a few scrappy lines ¾ an inch apart – take ½ an hour a day for 10 days – news, not satire unless you must – as you please though…
Otherwise, the letter includes subjects such as gardening, breeding canaries and earthquakes.
3. 1935, 10th February – Sendai
Aurelia writes about the difficulty of keeping up with correspondence, as well as some of the challenges she encounters when cooking and gardening. In between, a positive reference to Helen Waddell* is mentioned because Waddell had sent RH a copy of her book about Beasts and Saints (1934). Ralph was delighted that Waddell had remembered him and, through Aurelia, asks Silvia to tell Helen – only put it in nicer terms, that she is a “thundering nice person”.
The bulk of the letter is taken up with RH sending messages to Silvia, again via Aurelia, for the benefit of Athol & Gilbert Spencer (brother of Stanley Spencer) being fellow devotees of billiards. Ralph waxes eloquent that the green cloth to me is as beautiful as the green fields, and the sight of the three balls as good as a hedge sparrow’s nest with a cuckoo’s egg in it = the red ball. I shall dream tonight of billiards – I often do. He remembers with gratitude the tuition he received from Gilbert or Athol at the Red Cow** and suggests the two men might well compile a little book, “Billiards Now” illustrated with all the choicest strokes played at the Red Cow.
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Waddell
**A pub, probably in Hammersmith or Bermondsey. See London Pubs: https://londonwiki.co.uk/
4. 1938, no date – c/o SS Koteliansky Esq, 5 Acacia Rd, St John’s Wood, NW8
There is an image (1928) of RH with SSK (Kot) on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._S._Koteliansky
The cause of Athol’s death only reached Hodgson when he came over to the UK. He writes that the news came as a fearful shock to us both… I am deeply sorry & hardly know what to say: none of the normal things help. Only time & work can do that, but I am deeply grieved. This must have been written when Silvia was abroad, as he longs to see her again and hopes she returns before he leaves the UK.
The Hodgsons originally intended to spend several months in 1938, visiting the UK & USA and then return to Japan in the Autumn. The ‘troubles in the East’, however, changed all their plans. This was because the second Sino-Japanese War began, between the Chinese Republic & Japanese Empire, in the summer of 1937 – and continued throughout WW2 until 1945.
5. 1938, 6th November (Sunday)
– 124 Alexandra Rd, Abbey Rd, NW8. (Abbey Road is a 10 minute walk from Alexandra Road… as elsewhere, it should read St John’s Wood)
RH sends a quick note to Silvia saying he is so glad she is back as he was afraid that he might miss her (no indication as to where she has been). He suggests they meet at Ridgeways Tea Rooms in Piccadilly on Tuesday. He will be lunching nearby and offers a couple of times in the afternoon but realises he might be late.
There is a second short note from the same address written on a Saturday – presumably the following Saturday (13th November) – as he writes that he simply couldn’t manage any of the times. He has lost Silvia’s letter and sounds flustered because he has to go to Wiltshire until Monday. Instead, he hopes to see her on Tuesday or Wednesday as he may be leaving the country within the week.
6. 1938, 1st December (Thursday)
– 124 Alexandra Rd, Abbey Rd NW8
In fact, RH’s departure doesn’t happen until Saturday 3rd December when he sails to New York on RMS Aquitania* (the only major liner to serve in, and survive, both World Wars). At the eleventh hour, RH asks Silvia: Why don’t you come and see me off? Early. The boat train leaves Waterloo at 9 minutes past one PM but I shall be hanging about for hours before. He goes on to describe his luggage and all the labels that are required, plus his dog (which might deter Silvia as she doesn’t like dogs). The whole experience of packing had been truly awful – I have no head for packing; I haven’t packed; just shoved in, stamped on it. I don’t know where a single thing is but I’ll interfere with as little as possible till I reach Chicago where I’ll hand all over including me to Weg. (=Aurelia) … If I don’t see you on Saturday, Good Bye, till we meet again, perhaps in the U.S. And remember that I am always your most sincere RH.
And so ends another era…
Ironically, within a short space of time, Silvia travelled to Jamaica to spend Christmas with friends. From there she began her global adventure, first to Panama, then to California. She did not, however, attempt to travel East across America to visit the Hodgsons in Ohio. Rather, she went West and fulfilled her aspiration to visit the island of Bali.
Further Correspondence to follow….
1950-61
1962 – Endnote
