The stained glass company of T & W Hodgson of York was formed by Thomas (b.1813) and William Hodgson. Thanks to the York Glaziers Trust, we know that the business operated from workshops at 25 Stonegate, York from at least the 1850s, but the family must have been in business long before that because No. 25, Petergate in York, has a "round-headed staircase window [of] armorial painted glass dated 1801 and signed by Thomas Hodgson" (Pevsner and Neave 221). But census returns show a real boom in business from the 1850s: the firm went from employing three men and two young apprentices (one of them a relative) to fifteen men and four boys by the 1861 census. From Thomas Hodgson, the business went to his eldest son Thomas Gerard Hodgson, and continued up until 1923. From the same source we learn that "[a]longside their glazing work, the firm also manufactured and installed lead sanitation pipes, and were therefore plumber/glaziers adept with working with a variety of leaded products" ("Our Story"). Of special interest is the fact that they were closely associated with the well-known Belgian stained glass artist Jean-Baptiste Capronnier (1814-1891), both installing and restoring that firm's windows.
Besides being mentioned in the records of York Minster, the firm was responsible for the east window of St Paul's, Heslington (c. 1858), and is also listed by Nikolaus Pevsner and David Neave with work of 1864 at St Helen's, originally the estate church of Kilnwick Percy Hall (579); also at All Saints, Nafferton (619). The architectural firm J.B. and W. Atkinson used the firm for both glazing and plumbing when restoring All Saints', North Street, York. Whixley Church in the Harrogate district also had windows by the firm, which recently had to be conserved and renovated (see "Conservation complete").
It is interesting to learn that Hodgson's was on York Minster's records, and also that the firm employed Mark Barnett, a former employee of William Wailes of Newcastle (see "Our Story"). — Rita Wood and Jacqueline Banerjee.
St Paul's, Heslington
Bibliography
"Our Story." The York Glaziers Trust. Web. 27 October 2021.
Pevsner, Nikolaus, and David Neave. Yorkshire: York and the East Riding. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002.
Created 28 October 2021