Baptised in Liverpool 23 September 1833 in the heart of the city's slums he was the son of a brushmaker, also called William Hodgkins.

William Mathew went to school at Staveley, Derbyshire and his exercise book in penmanship survives, prefiguring his adult career as a law clerk and lawyer and his lifelong interest in graphics.

He lived in Holborn, worked for Waterlow and Sons, famous printers of stamps and bank notes, and for the Patent Office.

A resolution of 14 October 1884 effectively founded the Dunedin Public Art Gallery the first institution of its kind in New Zealand.

In 1884 he moved his family from a house in Royal Terrace, a good address in the city, to a rented cottage at Ravensbourne, a harbourside suburb.

Hodgkins struggled out of these difficulties, eventually moving the family back to a large rented house in town.

An accomplished landscape painter in the Romantic manner of Turner the most notable characteristic of his work is its use of colour.

Hodgkins embraced the newcomers and with Nerli in Dunedin the resulting twin circles of painters made the city for a while the foremost centre of art in New Zealand.

The Southern Alps of New Zealand.. of 1885 is often mentioned; The South Canterbury Plains from near Peel Forest of 1882 is remarkable for its breadth and simplicity.