Hodges/Westall Connection

The Hodges/Westall connection

In “Cook’s Log” (Vol 16 Nos 1 & 2 1993) Gordon Crompton drew attention to extracts from the Dairy of Joseph Farington where the death of William Hodges R.A. (1744 -1797) is mentioned. Hodges, landscape artist on the “Resolution” with Captain Cook, figures in other volumes of the Farington’s Diaries adding further light on the fate of his family after he died.

In addition I have established that William Hodges and William Westall A.R.A. (1781 – 1850), landscape artist on the voyage of the “Investigator (1801 -1803) captained by Matthew Flinders, were related through the marriage of Hodges to Anne Carr, Westall’s 2nd cousin. (See “The Journal of the Families in British India Society” No 13 Spring 2005)

The fact that the Westalls were in touch with Hodges is demonstrated by a painting exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1790 by Richard Westall R.A. (1765 – 1836), entitled “Portraits of a lady and her daughter (Mrs Hodges)”. In the next year Westall’s portrait of William Hodges was exhibited. This is likely to have been the source of an engraved portrait of Hodges after Richard Westall which appeared in the Literary Magazine in 1792.

In 1793 Farington has Westall sitting adjacent to Hodges at the Royal Academy dinner on 31 December and on Feb 10th, 1794 Farington notes that Hodges was among the RA’s who voted for Westall to be elected an R.A..

The death of Hodges is mentioned by Farington several times in 1797 and concerns mainly the plight of his widow and children. Sir John Carr, the widow’s brother, “describes pathetically the deep distress of Hrs Hodges” and financial support that might be obtained (March 9). Other information about the collapse of Hodges’ banking enterprise in Totnes is reported. (March 13). It is further noted (March 27) that Hodges “Lost £1400 by his publication of India Views”.

The Royal Academy provided Mrs Hodges with £100 a year and the children a further £60 per annum. There is much information concerning Hodges’ debts and news of £12000 for him “from India”. On July 3rd Farington notes: “William Hodges, married to Anne, Mary Carr at Saint Martins in the Fields December 1st – 1785. Henry Willm Hodges born Nov 28 1788 – Christened at St Georges Hanover Square.”

In 1803 an incident concerning Henry Hodges is reported on September 1 and 3 in which Westall advises that “Henry Hodges had gone away from Christ’s Hospital (recently) from an apprehension of being punished for having told an untruth abt. Purchasing a gun”. On January 29, 1811 Farington reports that Carr “told me of his two nieces Misses Hodges, with Miss Lindegreen having formed a plan for extending their Seminary for Young Ladies. He also told me that his nephew Henry Hodges who went a Cadet to India is advanced to the rank of Lieutenant on the Military establishement at Madras . He mentioned that it wd. Be useful to the Misses Hodges, to have some of the money which was raised after the death of their mother by the sale of her music”. Finally on 28th May, 1821 Farington writes: “Sir John Carr told me that he had made Henry Hodges the Heir of his estate in Essex consisting of 4 or 500 acres, and had divided his other property among his nieces, sisters of Henry Hodges”

Rex and Thea Reinits in their book “Early Artists in Australia” (1963) wrote: “Hodges was an artist of very considerable ability and imagination…after his return to England (he) became friendly with Richard Westall RA and through this friendship he met as a schoolboy Westall’s half-brother William, who as topographical draughtsman to Matthew Flinders, was to become the first artist to circumnavigate Australia and the best to portray its landscape for many years” In another reference the Reinits’ speculate that “it seems probable his (William Westall’s) own determination to travel sprang from listening to the stories this much travelled artist (Hodges) would have had to tell”.

Hodges was never in Australian territory with “Resolution”. He depicted idyllic views and dramatic paintings in the picturesque fashion of the day which we have been able to see at the exhibition of his work at the National Maritime Museum last year. An interesting review of that exhibition by Jeffrey Auerbach “The picturesque and the homogenisation of Empire” in “The British Art Journal” Vol V, No 1 Spring/Summer 2004 notes that “for (William) Westall the coastline (of Australia) did not yield the exotic subject matter he had hoped to find”. He also had the example of his brother- in-law William Daniell R.A. (1769 – 1837) to put alongside Hodges, where Indian scenery was far more exciting to a young artist in search of picturesque views. William Westall for many Australians made a mistaken statement by describing the continent as barren, although he may have witnessed this impact during most of the circumnavigation. Auerbach, however, makes the pertinent observation that “Westalls paintings are so clearly at odds with his written descriptions”. In his oil paintings for the Admiralty he has attractive scenery and his portrayals of aborigine people are far more accurate than contemporaries. (See “Art and Austrlalia” Vol 20 no 2 & “Westall’s Drawings” 1962).

Another link between Cook and Flinders is through Sir Joseph Banks, a traveller with Cook and the manager, in effect, of the Flinders voyage and its aftermath for the Admiralty. A further example is Daniel Solander, also on “Endeavour” who was among those proposing Westall, on his return to Britain, for membership of the Linnean Society.

Comparisons among the British artists who travelled to the Pacific region between the 1760s and 1810 are inevitable. For John Landseer William Westall “was more accomplished than Cook’s artists, Hodges and Webber”. For Dr Bernard Smith, the first person to provide a thorough study of European vision in the region, Westalls “costal profiles were more elaborate and more skilful than the profiles drawn by either Hodges or Webber.”

It is to be hoped that we shall be given a chance one day to see an exhibition which compares these three artists and possibly their French contemporaries.

Richard J. Westall