Michael William Hodgetts KSG (29 March 1936 – 12 December 2022) was an English Catholic historian who became a leading expert on priest holes and on Harvington Hall.

Early life

Hodgetts was born in Birmingham on 29 March 1936, and was raised a Catholic. He attended King Edward's School, Birmingham and then studied classics at Worcester College, Oxford, as well as briefly studying as a seminarian at the Venerable English College, Rome, before becoming a teacher at St Thomas More Catholic School, Willenhall.[1]

Career

In the 1970s and 1980s, he sat on the International Commission on English in the Liturgy,[2] alongside his work as a teacher, and his translation of the hymn Pange lingua is now used in the English-language Catholic liturgy for Good Friday.[1]

In 1984, he was appointed to the management committee of Harvington Hall, a former manor house and centre of Recusancy that had been given to the Archdiocese of Birmingham in 1923.[2] He edited the volumes series of the Catholic Record Society and the society's journal, Recusant History (now British Catholic History).[1] In 1989 he retired from school-teaching and joined the staff of Maryvale Institute, a Catholic college of further and higher education.[2]

Personal life

He married Barbara in 1969. They had four children.[3]

Hodgetts died on 12 December 2022, at the age of 86.[2][3]

Works

  • St. Chad's Cathedral, Birmingham (1987)
  • Secret Hiding Places (1989)
  • Midlands Catholic Buildings (1990)
  • Harvington Hall (1991,1998)
  • Life at Harvington, 1250-2000 (2002)
  • Midland Martyrs, 1580-1680 (2017)
  • (with Aileen M. Hodgson), Little Malvern Letters—I: 1482-1737 (2011)
  • (with Aileen M. Hodgson), Little Malvern Letters—II: 1737-1870 (2023)

Awards

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Michael Hodgetts, teacher and historian who studied the struggles of persecuted Catholics in the 16th century". The Daily Telegraph. 25 January 2023. (subscription required)
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Michael Hodgetts: distinguished recusant historian who oversaw the restoration of Harvington Hall". Catholic Herald. 26 December 2022.
  3. 1 2 "Michael Hodgetts, teacher and historian who studied the struggles of persecuted Catholics in the 16th century – obituary". The Telegraph. 25 January 2023. Retrieved 26 January 2023. (subscription required)
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