Sir William Hodges (1808–1868) was an English barrister and legal reporter, who became in 1857 chief justice of the Cape of Good Hope.
He educated at a private school in Salisbury and the University of London; and attended lectures of John Austin and Andrew Amos on jurisprudence and law.
[1] Hodges was called to the bar at the Inner Temple on 3 May 1833, and went the western circuit, practising at first mainly at quarter sessions.
In 1835 he began to report cases in the court of common pleas, then presided over by Sir Nicholas Tindal, from whom he received in 1837 the appointment of revising barrister for Devon and Cornwall.
He acquired some parliamentary and general practice at Westminster, and drafted the Public Health Act 1848 (11 & 12 Vict.