William Henry Hudson (4 August 1841 – 18 August 1922), known in Argentina as Guillermo Enrique Hudson, was an
Anglo-Argentine author,
naturalist and
ornithologist.
Life
Hudson was the son of Daniel Hudson and his wife Catherine (née Kemble), United States' settlers of English and Irish origin. He was born and lived his first years in a small
estancia called "25
Ombues"[1] in what is now Ingeniero Allan,
Florencio Varela, Argentina.
In 1846 the family established a pulpería further south, in the surroundings of
Chascomús, not far from the lake of the same name.[2] In this natural environment, Hudson spent his youth studying the local
flora and
fauna and observing both natural and human dramas on what was then a lawless frontier, while publishing his ornithological work in Proceedings of the Royal Zoological Society initially in an English mingled with Spanish idioms. He had a special love for
Patagonia.
Hudson emigrated to England in 1874, taking up residence at St Luke's Road in
Bayswater,[3] where he continued to live for most of his life; in 1876 he married his landlady, the former singer Emily Wingrave, in Kensington, London.[4] One of the daughters of John Hanmer Wingrave, she was some eleven years older than Hudson, having been born on 22 December 1829.[5] He supported himself as a writer and journalist; the couple had no children.[6] Hudson himself was naturalized as a
British subject on 4 July 1900.[7]
Hudson was a friend of the late-19th century English author
George Gissing, whom he met in 1889. They corresponded until the latter's death in 1903, occasionally exchanging their publications, discussing literary and scientific matters, and commenting on their respective access to books and newspapers, a matter of supreme importance to Gissing.[8]
In 1911 Emily Hudson became an invalid and moved to
Worthing in Sussex. After that, Hudson lived apart from her "for reasons of his own health", although it is clear from their abundant surviving correspondence that he visited her frequently and they remained on affectionate terms.[4]
Hudson died on 18 August 1922, at 40 St Luke’s Road,
Westbourne Park, Bayswater,[10] and was buried in Broadwater and Worthing Cemetery,
Worthing, on 22 August 1922, next to his wife, who had died early in 1921.[11][a]
Hudson left an estate valued at £8225, and his Executors were the publisher
Ernest Bell and Wynnard Hooper, a journalist.[10]
Books
He produced a series of ornithological studies, including Argentine Ornithology (1888–1899) and British Birds (1895), and later achieved fame with his books on the English countryside, all of them set in
Wiltshire, including Hampshire Days (1903), Afoot in England (1909), and A Shepherd's Life (1910), which helped foster the back-to-nature movement of the 1920s and 1930s.
Hudson's best-known novel is Green Mansions (1904), which was adapted into a
a film starring Audrey Hepburn and Anthony Perkins, and his best-known non-fiction is Far Away and Long Ago (1918), which was also made into
a film.
The Hudson Memorial Bird Sanctuary in
Hyde Park, London includes a carved stone memorial by Sir Jacob Epstein representing Rima, the child goddess of nature, who featured in Hudson's novel Green Mansions. The engravings are by the designer Eric Gill.
James Rebanks' 2015 book The Shepherd's Life about a Lake District farmer was inspired by Hudson's work of the same name: "But even more than Orwell or Hemingway, W.H. Hudson turned me into a book obsessive ..." (p. 115), and: "One day, I pulled A Shepherd's Life by W.H. Hudson from the bookcase ...and the sudden life-changing realization it gave me that we could be in books – great books." (p. 114)
In Argentina, Hudson is considered to belong to the national literature as Guillermo Enrique Hudson, the Spanish version of his name. A town in
Berazategui Partido and several other public places and institutions are named after him. The town of
Hudson in Buenos Aires Province is named for him.
Works
The Purple Land that England Lost: Travels and Adventures in the Banda Oriental, South America (1885)
Amy D. Ronner (1986) W.H. Hudson: The Man, The Novelist, The Naturalist
David Miller (1990) W.H. Hudson and the Elusive Paradise[4]
Felipe Arocena (2003) William Henry Hudson: Life, Literature and Science
Jason Wilson: Living in the sound of the wind, [A Personal Quest For W. H. Hudson, Naturalist And Writer From The River Plate], London : Constable, 2016
ISBN978-1-4721-2205-6
Notes
^There is a burial record for Emily Hudson in 1921, in a grave next to one which was to be occupied by William the following year. The General Registars Office record of the death of an Emily Hudson dying in 1921 in this area of Sussex gives her age as around 4 years older than is given in the censuses. One carefully researched biographical study states that she was "eleven years his senior".[4] For the
census of 1911 Hudson gave his wife’s age as sixty.[12]
^“Emily Wingrave”, in England, Select Births and Christenings, 1538-1975, ancestry.co.uk:
“Gender: Female / Birth Date: 22 Dec 1829 / Baptism Date: 18 Mar 1830 / Baptism Place: Saint James, Westminster / Father:
John Hanmer Wingrave / Mother: Sarah” (subscription required)
^General Registars Office records of marriages; censuses for 1881, 1891, 1901, 1911
^Taking the oath of allegiance on that date: UK Naturalisation Certificates and Declarations 1870–1916, Piece 030, Certificate Numbers A11301-A11700
^Shrubsall, Dennis and Pierre Coustillas eds. Landscape and literati: unpublished letters of W. H. Hudson and George Gissing. Salisbury: Michael Russell, 1985. Also various references in Coustillas, Pierre ed.London and the Life of Literature in Late Victorian England: the Diary of George Gissing. Brighton: Harvester Press, 1978.