John E. Hodgkin (1829-1912)

John Eliot Hodgkin was born in London in 1829, the son of John and Elizabeth Hodgkin. Elizabeth was the daughter of Luke Howard, the father of English meteorology, and Mariabella Eliot, from whom John derived his middle name. Both Hodgkin and Howard families had long-standing Quaker affiliations and John was educated privately at Grove House, Tottenham, which was closely associated with the Society of Friends. On leaving school, John was apprenticed to an engineering firm in Ipswich. In 1854, John married Sarah Ransome, the daughter of the firm’s owner, and went to work as a millwright and iron founder in Birmingham. From there he moved to Merseyside, and then in 1875 to London where he established a very successful business (the Pulsometer Engineering Company Ltd.) manufacturing steam pumps. In 1900, the firm moved to Reading, but Eliot remained managing director until his death in 1912.

Hodgkin also achieved a considerable reputation for his antiquarian interests, and was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. From the 1850s onwards, he assembled a vast collection not only of historical documents, rare books and prints but also of coins, seals, pottery and other objects. Some 20,000 of these were described in a set of 3 volumes entitled Rariora which he published in 1902. After his death, much of his collection was auctioned at Sotheby’s, in 1914.

His son, another John Hodgkin, also had an interest in bibliography and assembled a notable collection of books on cookery.