Weslyan Mission Bangalore. Rev. Thomas Hodsonupclosed.com |
Born in 1804, at North Scarle, Lincolnshire, England. In 1829, Thomas Hudson landed in India as a missionary of the Wesleyan Mission. Initially, he worked in Calcutta from 1828-1833 where he gained a good working language of Bengali. Between 1833-1836, his missionary work took him to South India - Bangalore and Mysore, and then to Gubbi in 1837. This gave him a chance to learn Kannada and Tamil. Again he served the mission in Mysore, between 1838-1843. Between 1843 and 1853, Rev. Hudson was in England on health ground. However, after a long gap he returned to the Wesleyan Canarese Mission in the Mysore District as the Chairman and Superintendent. His missionary work continued here till he left India in March 1878, for England where he died on 9 September 1882 at the age of 78.
Arriving from Calcutta, in the early days Thomas Hodson and his wife temporarily lived at the Wesleyan Mission House at the Bangalore Cantonment, along with Rev. Hardy. He never lost time in learning Kannada and Tamil widely spoken in Bangalore. Hudson was very particular about establishing educational system in Bangalore using the models employed by the American missionaries in Ceylon.
Wesleyan Wayside Canarese Chapel, Bangalore Peta (1856)en.wikipedia.org |
Karnataka: Goobee Mission Cottage (Hodson, 1877. en.eikipedia.org. |
Mary Ann Hodson, the wife of ThomasHodson, died at the age of 68 on 10 August 1866, and was buried at the Agram Protestant Cemetery in Bangalore. Later Thomas married Sophia Simpson (born 1836) and had another child Margaret Hodson born in 1871. Thomas also had a son from his first marriage, Richard George Hodson (born 1830), who wrote articles on Bangalore in the Wesleyan Magazine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hodson