William Hodges

Some of his expedition paintings have a marked resemblance in terms of epic scope and sweep of the Hudson River School of Art.

Most of the large-scale landscape oil paintings from his Pacific travels for which Hodges is best known were finished after his return to London; he received a salary from the Admiralty for the purposes of completing them.

Contemporary art critics complained that his use of light and colour contrasts gave his paintings a rough and unfinished appearance.

Hodges also produced many valuable portrait sketches of Pacific islanders and scenes from the voyage involving members of the expedition.

In 1778, under the patronage of Warren Hastings, Hodges travelled to India, one of the first British professional landscape painters to visit that country.

In late January 1795, with Britain engaged in the War of the First Coalition against Revolutionary France and feelings running high, the exhibition was visited by Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, the second son of King George III.

On 6 March of that year, he died from what was officially recorded as "gout in the stomach", but which was also rumoured to be suicide from an overdose of laudanum.

Hodges is reputed to have returned a rich man, and settled in Queen Street, Mayfair, where he built himself a studio.

At about the same time, Hodges was listed as the guardian of Ann Mary's brother, John, later a famous travel writer.

Totally disillusioned, Hodges retired from his profession, sold his London property, and moved himself and his family, in July, 1795, to Brixham and Dartmouth in South Devon.

The bank opened in Dartmouth on 24 August 1795, and the following is an extract from the Exeter Flying Post dated 1 October 1795: The public are hereby informed that on this day Bank was opened at Dartmouth in the county of Devon under the firm of J. Seale, Hodges, Gretton and Ful where business will be transacted with the greatest punctuality.

The cause of death, as rumoured locally, was through an overdose of laudanum, which Hodges used as medication to treat his stomach gout.

However, we do know that he was under severe stress at the time caused by his own parlous financial situation and the impending collapse of the bank, both of which appeared intertwined.

With a modesty that always characterizes worth and genius, he retired from the prosecution of his art, conceiving that his place would be filled by men of greater merit.

He had, therefore, with the profit of his labours in the East, taken a share in a provincial bank, which, with his attention, his integrity, and the many friends his virtues and talents had procured him, would probably have proved a prosperous undertaking.

Joseph Farrington RA (1747–1821) studied as a pupil under Richard Wilson R.A. at the same time as Hodges and later both became fellow Royal Academicians.

An entry relating to the disposal of some of Hodges' personal possessions was written some years later on 3 October 1809, when Farrington was journeying through the West Country and visited Brixham: ___ told us that after his death there was a sale at his house and that many articles, particularly valuable books, were sold for almost nothing.