Robert Allason Hodgkin

Background

Robert Hodgkin was born on February 12, 1916, in Banbury, Oxfordshire. He was the son of George и Mary Hodgkin. His father died when Hodgkin was only two years old.

Education

Robert Hodgkin studied at the Dragon and Leighton Park Schools. Then he graduated from Oxford University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1937 and a Master of Arts in 1939. Besides, Hodgkin was part of a generation of enthusiastic climbers in the Oxford University Mountaineering Club that included John Hoyland and David Cox.

Career

During the 1930s, Robert Hodgkin climbed peaks in Wales, Norway, and the Caucasus. In 1938 however, he ran into trouble while climbing the Masherbrum, a 24,000-foot peak in the Himalayas. An avalanche buried the camp, and he lost several fingers and toes from frostbite, which effectively ended his climbing career. Hodgkin then began a career in education, teaching at Leighton Park in Sudan, where he joined the civil service. From 1949 to 1955, he was the principal of the Sudan Institute of Education before returning to England to be headmaster at Abbotsholme School in Uttoxeter, where he started a climbing club. He then became a freelance writer and lecturer in education studies at the Department of Educational Studies at Oxford in the 1960s, retiring in 1977.

Additionally, Robert Hodgkin was a writer. He was the author of several books, including Education and Change, Reconnaissance on an Educational Frontier, and Playing and Exploring: Education through the Discovery of Order.

Achievements

• Robert Hodgkin was widely known as a writer, educator, and mountaineer. He climbed peaks in Wales, Norway, and the Caucasus. As an educator, Hodgkin taught for more than twenty years in the United Kingdom and Sudan. Serving at Abbotsholme School in Uttoxeter, he started a climbing club.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Reconnaissance on an Educational Frontier 1970
  • Playing and Exploring 1985
  • Born curious 1976

Views

When Robert Hodgkin left Sudan, he declined the substantial gratuity due to him, insisting that the money be spent on badly needed books - an act of practical charity that typified the nature of his religious pragmatism. He lived a singular, full, and fascinating life in which charity and simplicity were his guiding principles.

Membership

• 

  Robert Hodgkin was a vice president of the Alpine Club from 1974 to 1975.

  Alpine Club , United Kingdom

• 

  Oxford University Mountaineering Club , United Kingdom

Personality

Robert Hodgkin was an energetic, thoughtful, very straight, and good man.

Physical Characteristics: In 2002 Robert Hodgkin suffered a severe stroke, which left him handicapped and blind.

Quotes from others about the person

• Edward Peck: "He was the most generous and kindly of men. I often felt humbled in his presence, for though sharing his great love of mountains, I could not hope to match his digitalizes skill in climbing, and was out of my depth in education and religion."

Connections

Robert Hodgkin married Elizabeth Hodgkin in 1947. They had two sons and a daughter.

Father:

George Lloyd Hodgkin

Mother:

Mary FletcherHodgkin

Mary Hodgkin's maiden name was Wilson.

Brother:

Alan Lloyd Hodgkin

Alan Lloyd Hodgkin received the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1963.

Brother:

George Keith Howard Hodgkin

Wife:

Elizabeth Hodgkin

Elizabeth Hodgkin's maiden name was Hodgson.

Acquaintance:

John Hoyland

John Hoyland was one of Britain's leading abstract painters, renowned for his bold use of color and inventive forms.

Acquaintance:

David Cox

David Cox was widely regarded as one of the first-night climbers to have scaled the Radcliffe Camera and the Codrington Library during the early 1930s.