Brian Houghton Hodgson (1 February 1801[1] – 23 May 1894[2]) was a pioneer naturalist and ethnologist working in India and Nepal where he was a British Resident.

[7] Hodgson sensed the resentment of Nepal following annexation of a large part of her lands and believed that the situation could be improved by encouraging commerce with Tibet and by making use of the local manpower in the British military.

Bhimsen was suspected and Hodgson recommended that he be held in custody and this led to widespread anti-British sentiment which was used by the King as well as Rana Jang Pande.

Lord Auckland, the Governor-General of India, wanted to settle the issue but troops had already been mobilised to Afghanistan and Hodgson had to negotiate through diplomacy.

In 1842, Hodgson provided refuge to an Indian merchant Kashinath from Benares who was sought by King Rajendra for recovery of some dues.

Ellenborough's letter to Hodgson declared that no Resident would act contrary to the views of Government or extend privileges of British subjects beyond limits assigned to them.

Joseph Dalton Hooker visited him during this period and wrote back to Charles Darwin with information obtained from Hodgson on the introduced species and hybrids.

He believed that racial affinities could be identified on the basis of linguistics and he was influenced by the works of William Jones, Friedrich Schlegel, Johann Blumenbach and Jame Prichard.

[15][16][17] In 1837 Hodgson collected the first Sanskrit text of the Lotus Sutra and sent it to translator Eugène Burnouf of the Collége de France, Paris.

[18] During his service in India, Hodgson was a strong proponent of education in the local languages and opposed both the use of English as a medium of instruction as advocated by Lord Macaulay as well as the orientalist view that supported the use of Arabic, Persian or Sanskrit.

Hodgson wrote a series of essays for the journal of the Serampore Mission The Friend of India that argued for the education in the vernacular.

[19][20] No one has more earnestly urged the duty of communicating European knowledge to the natives than Mr. Hodgson; no one has more powerfully shown the importance of employing the vernacular languages for accomplishing that object; no one has more eloquently illustrated the necessity of conciliating the learned and of making them our coadjutors in the great work of a nation's regeneration.Hodgson studied all aspects of natural history around him including material from Nepal, Sikkim and Bengal.

[22] As a result of an order by the Nepalese court he was unable to travel outside Kathmandu while living there and he therefore employed local hunters to collect his specimens for him.

In addition to these, the collection also included an enormous number of drawings and coloured sketches of Indian animals by three native artists under his supervision.

He wrote to his sister Fanny:[29] I have still my accomplished and amiable guest, Dr. Hooker, with me, and am even thinking of accompanying him on an excursion to the foot of the snows.

Dr. Hooker and I wish to make the nearer acquaintance of this king of mountains, and we propose, if we can, to slip over one of the passes into Tibet in order to measure the height of that no less unique plateau, and also to examine the distribution of plants and animals in these remarkable mountains which ascend from nearly the sea-level, by still increasing heights and corresponding changes of climate, to the unparalleled elevation above spoken of.

He says our Darjiling botany is a wondrous mixture of tropical and northern forms, even more so than in Nepal and the western parts of the Himalayan ranges ; for we have several palms and tree-ferns and Cycases and Musas (wild plantain), whereas to the westward there are few or none of these.

Laurels too abound with me as forest trees, and a little to the north are the whole coniferous family, Pinus, Picea, Abies, with larch and cedar and cypress and juniper, all represented by several species and nearly all first-rate for size and beauty.

Then my shrubs are Camelias and Daphnes and Polygonums and dwarf bamboos ; and my herbaceous things, or flowers and grasses, bluebells, geraniums, Cynoglossum, Myriactis, Gnaphalium, with nettles, docks, chickweeds, and such household weeds.

I wish, Fan, you were here to botanise with Dr. Hooker ; for I am unworthy, having never heeded this branch of science, and he is such a cheerful, well-bred youthful philosopher that you would derive as much pleasure as profit from intercourse with him.

Moreover his opportunities in this direction were somewhat circumscribed, for Nepal and Sikkim were the only provinces in our vast empire whose birds he was able to study in life for any considerable period.

He trained Indian artists to paint birds with extreme accuracy from a scientific point of view, and under his careful supervision admirable large-scale pictures were produced, not only of all the new species above referred to, but also of several hundred other already recorded ones, and in many cases of their nests and eggs also.

These were continually accompanied by exact, life-size, pencil drawings of the bills, nasal orifices, legs, feet, and claws (the scutellation of the tarsi and toes being reproduced with photographic accuracy and minuteness), and of the arrangement of the feathers in crests, wings, and tails.

Then on the backs of the plates was preserved an elaborate record of the colours of the irides, bare facial skin, wattles, legs, and feet, as well as detailed measurements, all taken from fresh and numerous specimens, of males, females, and young of each species, and over and above all this, invaluable notes as to food (ascertained by dissection), nidification and eggs, station, habits, constituting as a whole materials for a life-history of many hundred species such as I believe no one ornithologist had ever previously garnered.

...Hodgson combined much of Blyth's talent for classification with much of Jerdon's habit of persevering personal observation, and excelled the latter in literary gifts and minute and exact research.

The list of world birds maintained by Frank Gill, Pamela Rasmussen and David Donsker on behalf of the International Ornithological Committee credits Hodgson as the authority for 29 genera and 77 species.

[36][37] In 1839 he wrote to his sister Fanny that he did not eat meat or drink wine and preferred Indian food habits after his ill health in 1837.

[41] Tickell's sister Mary Rosa was married to Brian's brother William Edward John Hodgson (1805 – 12 June 1838).